Crash Test Dummy

Chapter 32

The next morning Mom was the first person on their witness list. As she turned to leave, I leaned over and whispered in her ear. "God give her strength and peace. Amen." She smiled. "I'll be praying." I said.

She was gone for about thirty minutes. When she came back in, her eyes looked sad and tight. She stopped and said something to Shelley. She came over to where I was. I stood and gave her a hug.

"Let's get out of here," she said.

We walked silently out of the building. There was a park down the street. Mom headed straight for it. We sat at a picnic table. Mom put her arms on the table and laid her head on them. Her shoulders started to shake. She was obviously crying. I didn't know what to do. Finally, I reached out and rubbed her back the way Seth does. She slowly began to calm down.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Brock said yesterday that he thought your testimony left no doubts in the jurors minds about your sincerity. I may have undone all of that."

"What did I forget to warn you about?" My voice was low and resigned.

"A selfie." She took out a Kleenex and blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

I groaned. "The one with the brews. That was on Marlow's phone. I forgot about it. I even made a copy at Walmart and sent it to Dad. How could I have been so stupid?"

"Well, maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed to me. I answered all the lawyer's questions about your lying to me confidently. I think it was clear to everyone that at some point you had confessed. He didn't even ask me when. The only thing he hadn't asked me about was the drinking. Then he put the selfie up on a screen using his computer somehow. I imagine I looked shocked, because he said, 'You didn't know about this did you?'"

She sighed. "I told him no, but that I wasn't surprised because I already suspected you had started drinking, before you confirmed it in your moment of true confession. After that he released me. I don't think he wanted for me to rebound anymore than I already had."

"Why was it so shocking? I had already told you I had been drinking. You knew that I had a low level of alcohol in my blood the night of the accident."

"It's one thing to hear it. I can sort of process it with my mind and divorce emotion from the knowledge. But to see it is different, at least for me, and I suspect most women. He obviously was counting on the emotional affect a picture can have. The old saying, 'A picture is worth a thousand words,' was certainly true in this instance."

Mom's phone pinged. She looked down. "It's from Cory."

She opened a text and read aloud. "You did good. We'll debrief over lunch. Meet us at Maria's at 12."

"So, why aren't you smiling?"

"Visual, remember. I need to see his face when he says it. Is he just being nice to keep me from getting too upset. And why do we need to debrief?"

I laughed. "Geez, Mom. You're overthinking this. Chill."

When we met for lunch, both DAs seemed to be in a good mood. There was a woman with them. "This is my wife, Deborah," Cory said. After we shook hands, he continued. "She's finishing up her law degree, specializing in jury selection."

"This is on me," Brock said. "So order whatever you want."

"You're sure upbeat," I said. "I guess Mom's shock when they put the selfie up wasn't as damning as she thought.

"I was watching the jury," Cory said. "That's the majority of my job during the defense portion of the trial. I don't look closely at the witnesses because I'm keeping the jury in my peripheral vision. I can't just stare at the jury, that would be disconcerting and obvious. But Deborah can. She's doing some kind of research on jury consultants; they're the people who are paid to help with jury selection and sometimes to watch the jury during the trial and give feedback. She comes to my trials when she can and gives feedback on the jury. I get the help I need, and she mines data for her dissertation."