Chapter 22

The door to the jury room opened and a man wearing glasses came in. He looked at something on a clipboard in his hand.

"We're about to begin," he said, with no other introduction. "I need to give you some information about what's expected of you. Please listen closely."

He read a list of rules, things they could and could not do while they were sitting in the jury box. His voice droned, making it clear he'd read this list countless times in the past.

Fully half the jury tuned him out within the first thirty seconds. Reggie wasn't interested in hearing a white man tell him what he could and couldn't do. Rick just wanted to get on with things. Jane thought it was stupid that you couldn't talk to each other out there, and while thinking of all the reasons it was stupid missed everything else that was said. Jim was trying to remember if he'd saved his recent work. Judy, similar to Reggie, heard a man laying down the rules and felt sorry for his wife. Kelsey was trying so hard to learn the new rules that, after the third one, he got confused and gave up.

"All rise!" came the astonishingly high and effeminate voice of the tall, gangly bailiff.

There was a snicker from the gallery, and the Honorable Wade Gunderson's head turned sharply as he stepped up to the bench. His eyes raked over the sparse audience, which went deathly quiet as it was obvious he was trying to see who had made the noise. The bailiff seemed not to have heard the disturbance, and droned on, saying the Judge's name and the type of court everyone already knew they were in.

Judge Gunderson arranged his long black robe and sat in the desk chair he'd picked out himself. If you had to sit somewhere for hours on end, it should, by God, be comfortable.

"Sit down," he growled, looking down at the folder on his desk. He looked up, his eyes going to the prosecutor first. "You ready?"

Roger stood. "Yes, your honor," he said formally.

The judge's dark eyes, under bushy white eyebrows that could have been Andy Rooney's, went to Matthew next.

"Is the defense ready?"

"The defense is ready," said Matthew.

"Any motions before we begin?" asked Gunderson.

No one said anything.

"Opening statements," said the judge, and leaned back.

Roger stood, looked through some papers on his desk one last time, and strolled over to lay one hand on the rail that separated him from the twelve people he was quite sure would side with him by the end of the day.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you are here to hear evidence that will prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Lacey Jean Fetterman killed one Gilbert Kinneson. Further, you will hear that that killing was unlawful and constituted murder in the second degree."

He seemed to think for a few seconds and then went on.

"The defense is going to try to convince you that this was all just a mistake, or that Ms. Fetterman lost control of herself. They will point out that she turned herself in and that she feels remorse for her acts. But the fact remains, ladies and gentlemen, that she burned a man to death, and that she knew he was alive when she did it. She even confessed to that, and the prosecution will show that she confessed without being coerced in any way."

He looked into the eyes of each juror, all of whom were actually looking at him.

"The spirit of her victim cries out for justice. You MUST find her guilty, ladies and gentleman. Justice demands it!"

He made eye contact with each juror one more time and then returned to his seat.

Matthew McDill got up. He looked scared.

"On the twenty-third of May, this year, Lacey Fetterman let what she thought was an employee of the gas company into her apartment. Her life was then threatened with a knife, and she was brutally raped. The rapist said he would be coming back to rape her again."

Matthew also made eye contact with each juror, and continued.

"It ruined her life, ladies and gentlemen, in ways that will be explained to you. She was frightened all of the time after that, never knowing if or when her attacker would suddenly show up to abuse her again. Then, quite suddenly, through circumstances she had no control over, she was thrown together with this despicable rapist again. She was terrified, and she reacted. We will make argument that her actions, at that point, were ill advised, but she was terrified. She didn't set out that fateful day to hurt anyone. She's never hurt anyone before or since that day. The prosecutor said that justice demands you find her guilty. I say that justice demands she be given a chance to gather what remains of her life and struggle on."

He turned and went to sit beside the woman that every juror was now staring curiously at.

Roger Schwartz went about his job with precision and efficiency. He had read all of the police reports the woman was involved with. He'd had to scramble to get Kinneson identified, since he'd been buried as a John Doe. There were quite a few details in those reports that he had no desire for the jury to know about. Bob Duncan had testified in Roger's trials in the past. It was obvious there had been some kind of dustup in the police department, since Duncan was no longer a detective, but his reports were superb and Roger hadn't seen any need to interview him before the trial.

Considering that the accused seemed to want to confess every time anybody talked to her, it seemed very straightforward, though. It was really open and closed, just like the reports seemed to be.

He anticipated few bumps in the road.

He started with the traffic investigation of the incident that day, calling Officer Robert Duncan to the stand. In many cases, he just would have just asked the witness to describe the investigation. In this instance, however, his questions were precise. Roger wanted the jury to learn as little about Mr. Kinneson as possible. He did not, for example, want them to know that Kinneson had died in a stolen car, after being chased for miles by half a dozen troopers and cops who suspected him of just having raped the woman whose car he'd stolen.

"Officer Duncan, did you find Mr. Kinneson's body in a car?" he asked.

"I found a body in a car which was later identified as being Gilbert Kinesson," said Bob, who generally answered questions in court as accurately and with as few words as possible.

"What was the attitude of the vehicle when you first saw it?"

"It was upside down."

"I understand the car was burned."

"Objection!" said McDill. "Leading the witness."

Judge Gunderson scowled. "Don't try to make a game of this. We all know he can establish the car was burned."

"I'll rephrase, your honor," said Schwartz magnanimously. He turned back to Bob. "Was the car burned?"

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