The Aftermath

01

The jury was out for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of deliberation. During that short time twelve men and women agreed on a life or death decision. Thirty minutes was a bad sign for Tom.

Tom Blake's inner turmoil rose as each juror returned to their chair. Wild energies created storms of panic in his mind. His balled fists cramped his forearm and finger muscles. In vain he willed himself to relax, to focus, to breath.

He was a handsome man, two years short of forty-years-old. The blond hair of his youth was now uniform platinum. He stood six-two, and even in the defendant's chair his height was evident. He had the ridged posture of a military man, evident in his back, and across his broad shoulder line.

His lawyer, Charlie Davis, a beautiful if stern looking brunette, stiffened when the jury filed back into the room, her face going poker-dead. She wore a brown pant-suit, with a red blouse.

Charlie told Tom, just before the jury entered the room, they would probably have to wait until Monday for a decision. She explained that in death-sentence cases, like his, people were apt to debate longer. She attempted to sooth him with the idea that the longer the wait, the more chance there was of an acquittal. When the jury filed into the courtroom after only thirty minutes, the paling of her face was bright against her red blouse.

The judge waited for the jury to settle. He wore a look of concern on his elder face.

The judge asked if the jury was sure they were ready -- the spokesman stood, and answered yes. The room became tome still. Tom's gut clenched at the surety of man. The judge asked for the verdict for the first charge. Tom forgot to breathe, and before the spokesman for the jury gave the verdict, he was seeing black spots swirling in the air.

Not guilty.

Tom exhaled and the exhale purged the build-up of bile from the last twenty-eight days of trial. He exhaled all the way down to the death-rattle bottom of his lungs, clearing them in one vast exhaust.

The gallery erupted in thunderous voices. The judge's gavel pounded solidly on the wood podium. He demanded order from the viewers of the trial. The two bailiffs moved to the bar, warning spectators in the gallery to go back to their chairs.

Before Tom could smile through the haze of his relief, Charlie put her hand on his arm, pressing Tom's forearm to the chair arm, restraining him. Tom reacted with confusion and then realized there were four more counts to go. Five counts of murder. Five total.

Tom felt the electric bolts of terror return to his gut. His heart beat quickened, and his lungs filled once more with sour tension.

The verdict was read for the second count.

Not guilty.

Three more to go.

Each of the victims were young women -- high school girls and first year college students. Five of them murdered over the course of six months.

The girls were not simply killed, they suffered. Tortured -- that was the real word for the abuse they endured. The newscasts called them the Coroner Killings. It was an apt name. Each of the girls were cut open; a Y-incision across the chest. Then a bone saw split their rib-cages. After that, organs were pulled out. Somewhere during the process of this autopsy on the living, this dissection, the girls died. No pain medications were used, no sign the victims were asleep at the time. Expert testimony agreed each of the five girls were alive and alert when their sternums were split. Heavy doses of adrenaline were used by the killer on the victims to keep them alive and alert while the dissection was being done.

These were the crimes Tom was accused of; monstrous acts against living beings.

The D.A. wanted the death penalty.

The judge's shouts demand order again. A bailiff called for assistance on his radio. The jury spokesman waited, heedless of the excited people in the gallery. When the courtroom settled once more the judge asks for the next verdict.

Not guilty.

The courtroom erupts again, and Tom vaguely perceives some of those voices are threatening. The angst only registers on his peripheral, however, and his mind dismisses the threats as irrelevant. His focus is tunneled on the jury spokesman. The spokesman was the only one who could kill Tom with a single word.

Tom breathes in pants. He tries to breathe through his nose, but his body ignores his vanity. Vanity was for the living, not the condemned.

Not guilty - came the fourth verdict.

Sheriff Deputies are now coming through the back doors. The judge is ordering the court room to be cleared. Then something hits Tom on the side of his head, and bounces onto the table before him. It is a heavy black book; solid and hard. A bible. Tom barely notices the encounter. His full attention is rapt on the spokesman.

There is a scuffle now in the gallery. For Tom it is an occurrence of unrelated events. He doesn't hear the cursing, or the ratchet of the handcuffs, nor does he feel the blood run down his scalp to his throat, from where the book split the skin near his temple. The blood is a steady, but slow purge, which is staining the white collar of his shirt.

Finally the courtroom is cleared. The judge sits down once the doors are closed. He turns his attention to the spokesman.

Not guilty.

For Tom the room is quiet. All he can hear is the thump of his heart beating against his ear drum. His brain is a rush of emotional reactions, many of them in conflict.

Charlie is standing now, she's saying something, and smiling, but Tom can't make out the meaning. He nods dumbly. The inside of his skull sounds like a radio station tuned to an off channel.

Then his wife, Samantha, is beside him, leaning over and hugging him. Her lips are on his forehead and his cheek. Then she is fussing with a tissue against his scalp, pulling it away full of blood. His daughter Angie is in front of him, kneeling, hugging his waist. He pets her hair and brushes a tear from her cheek.

Then the chaos came through his shock-bubble. It felt like his ears popped from altitude, but greater in effect. The outrage outside the courtroom broke through as an explosion of angst.

Tom turned his attention to the D.A.'s table. District Attorney, Norris Arroyo, was packing up his notes and folders. He was a light-skinned Latino, dressed in a dark blue suit with a red power tie. His hair was perfect, and so was the thin mustache. The prosecutor was blatantly ignoring Tom's existence.

Homicide Detective John Roads was less subtle. Nearly the polar opposite in description from the D.A., Detective Roads is five-ten, three-hundred pounds and dressed in a tan sports jacket which looked as if it was trying hard to escape from his body. Thinning dark brown hair, and a face a little too small for his head, gave Roads a shifty, mean look. The detective was looking over at him with flashes of wrath.

There is nothing Roads can do now. The trial is over, Tom reminded himself, wishing he believed the words, but the passion behind the detective's glare seemed to bend reality into a dimension where not guilty was a meaningless phrase; where double-jeopardy simply meant round two.