Chapter 18

Steve Curtis hosted a big Fourth of July barbeque in his back yard. Almost the whole community showed up.

Allyson and Charmaine Granger walked up the street. Jonah and Marcia Attenborough arrived. Almost every person affiliated with the Emerald Cove city government made at least an appearance. The cops who were off that day spent most of the afternoon. Those on duty stopped by for a burger and a soft drink on their lunch breaks.

Linda and Bill Roberts were there with their three children – which ranged in age from a five-year-old boy to a fourteen-year-old girl. Bill chuckled openly when both Linda and their daughter, Dawn, tried to outdo each other in flirting with Bryant.

"I'm going to have to invite you over," Bill told him. "I might even get a home-cooked meal if they think they're fixing it for you."

But the main topic of conversation was the upcoming trial of Jonathan Mayfield, which was scheduled to start on the Monday following the holiday. Jonah and Allyson were the stars of the afternoon, accepting good luck from all who passed by.

The pretrial motions had been contentious.

Mayfield's father had retained an Atlanta attorney named Wyatt Quinn to represent his son. Quinn had filed a barrage of motions. Some of them were the typical paperwork that came with every capital case. Others were designed solely to keep the prosecution team occupied.

Allyson and Jonah had two paralegals and a receptionist they shared. Their investigative team was the Emerald Cove Police Department, which had other duties to perform.

Quinn had the weight of his entire firm, the fourth largest in Atlanta, to support him. He had a dozen people to do his research. Bruce Mayfield had paid a $150,000 retainer against a $750,000 total fee. That money went not only to attorney fees but also to pay for a half dozen men and women to scour every corner for evidence to exonerate their client. Quinn had absolutely no doubt the man he was paid to represent was guilty. If he harbored any uncertainty, that disappeared when his Keenan counsel – the attorney tasked by the court to present mitigating circumstances during the penalty phase if Mayfield was found guilty of murder with special circumstances – arrived back from Gallia County, Ohio.

"He's a complete tool," Emily McGregor said as she sat across from the lead counsel. "I spoke to half of the county and to a person they said the same thing, 'They're thrilled as hell that he might get the punishment he's deserved for the past ten years. They only hope this bankrupts his family in the process'. You would not believe some of the stories I heard about that kid and his friends."

She shook her head sadly.

"You weren't able to find a single witness who would testify on his behalf?" Quinn asked incredulously.

"None that aren't in prison for the same shit he's charged with," McGregor stated flatly. "Let's face it. If that boy is convicted, he's going to get the needle."

Quinn nodded. He would hate to see a man like Jonathan Mayfield loose on the street again. He had pegged the guy as a predator from the moment he'd met the kid in the jailhouse's attorney room. The kid's dad was cut from the same cloth. He was egotistical and overbearing. He thought that because he was hot shit in Pig Fuck, Ohio, he carried some weight in Atlanta – or even Emerald Cove, S.C.

But Wyatt Quinn had a job to do and so did Emily McGregor. If they couldn't get their client a decent sentence they would have to make sure he wasn't convicted. To that end, Quinn had developed a scattergun strategy. His plan was to deluge the prosecutors with as many fruitless motions as possible.

He had challenged every single piece of evidence that the state had listed in discovery. When he learned that Allyson Granger had once been married to the lead investigator, he had tried to get her removed from the case.

He lost that battle but he had won far more often than he had expected he would. The City of Emerald Cove had never tried a capital-murder case. The judge had never presided over a death trial. Quinn had used that to his advantage as often as he could. The judge had made the state justify everything they planned to introduce at the trial.

Quinn had succeeded in getting a hearing on several pieces of evidence. Although most of it had been admitted it had given him the chance to get an inkling of how the state would proceed. He had thought that the judge had been intimidated by the presence of a big-city lawyer in his little town.

His error became evident when the judge's rulings came down. Every piece of vital evidence was admitted. Quinn managed to get a few things excluded but nothing crucial. His wins had been mostly pyrrhic in nature. The judge, Alex Manning, had tossed him a few bones but he had not gutted the state's case as Quinn had hoped.

The defense's major victory had come with the biggest argument. Quinn had filed a motion to introduce Bryant Hawkins' service jacket from Chicago into evidence. He had been surprised at the vehemence that Jonah Attenborough had protested the motion.

At first, Quinn thought that meant that Hawkins was hiding something. As the motions arguments took form, it became evident that he was incorrect. The prosecutors were determined to fight for their witness not because there was some skeleton in his closet but because they thought it was unfair to allow him to be crucified on the witness stand for something completely unrelated to the case at hand.

Quinn had been amazed to learn that there were attorneys who still believed in fairness. That was such an antiquated notion. In Quinn's world it wasn't about fair or unfair. It wasn't even about guilt or innocence. It was solely about winning and losing. If that meant a few guilty people were left outside of a prison cell, that was okay – so long as the money kept rolling in.

Finding a jury for the trial had created another problem. Quinn had filed a motion for a change of venue but Manning had flatly denied it. The city was already paying for witnesses to be brought in from several out-of-town locations.

Dr. Tim Houston was being paid to come in from Savannah to testify. He was a contract employee and had to be compensated for all work he did. And the forensic pathologist did not come cheap. But he was a bargain compared to what it was costing the city to transport and house Richard Currence and two West Virginia State Troopers that the Mountain State prison officials had insisted were necessary to ensure Currence didn't try to run away.

Currence would be lodged in the neighboring county's jail – which was also not free. Mayfield was being held in Emerald Cove and there was no way they were going to put Currence anywhere near a guard or an inmate that Mayfield's father might have paid to keep his son safe.

There was no way the city was going to foot the bill to transport the entire trial somewhere else. It just wasn't feasible.

But Manning fully understood that it would be almost impossible to find an impartial juror in Emerald Cove. He had learned that when he had his administrator pass out a questionnaire during the spring trial session. There was barely a soul who hadn't heard about the case and formed an opinion about Jonathan Mayfield.

So he had gone a different route. He used some of his contacts in the judiciary to convince two cities well away from Emerald Cove to convene two jury pools for the city to select from. Some of the jurors were not happy at the prospect of spending as long as three weeks sequestered in a hotel room listening to gruesome testimony about a rape and murder of a young girl.

It took more than a week to pare down the two hundred people – one hundred each from Aiken (seventy-five miles to the west), and from Conway (one hundred twenty five miles to the northwest), into twelve jurors and six alternates. Manning had been unflinching in denying almost any excuse that the jurors thought up. He refused to excuse a juror because he was a father if there was another parent to care for the child; he refused to excuse a business owner if there was someone else to watch the shop; he refused to excuse a doctor and a lawyer, both of whom claimed they were far too important to give that much time to something as trivial as a rape-murder case.

The only people out of the two hundred sent to Emerald Cove that Manning let go home early were a woman who cared for her special needs child, a young man who had been diagnosed with leukemia and a former police officer. The other hundred ninety-seven were sworn in to face the inquisition from three lawyers.

Quinn wasn't pleased at the final makeup of the jury. He had wanted a younger group – people who were more likely to hold liberal political views (and thus be less likely to sign a death warrant) and who had no children (and thus would likely feel less empathy for the victim). He had hoped to pack the jury with minorities but it was almost exclusively white. He had tried his best but the panel simply wasn't to his liking.

Each side had been issued twenty peremptory challenges. The defense could excuse twenty people without giving a reason (unless it became evident he was trying to exclude a racial group). So could the prosecution. The other potential jurors could be released for cause – if they held firm views on the death penalty (either for it or against it) or one side thought the member might be unable to render an impartial verdict.

Manning had to approve the challenge but he had given both sides a lot of leeway at the start of the process. By the end, though, the sides had to present a valid argument to get someone excluded for cause. Quinn had used his last peremptory challenge while there were two spots open and twenty potential jurors to fill them.

Attenborough had managed to get a retired Army non-commissioned officer on the jury. The man was in his early fifties, and not only had a daughter but a young granddaughter. Quinn had tried his best to cross the man up during voir dire but the man had answered every question in such a way that even the defense's jury consultant could find no fault.

The last juror was a college student just like Quinn had hoped. But it certainly wasn't someone he wanted on the jury. The kid had worked his way up from direst poverty to earn a scholarship at South Carolina-Aiken. He had two younger sisters and it was evident from his mannerisms that the young man loathed Jonathan Mayfield and everything the defense stood for. But he stated with conviction that he would base the case on the evidence and that he entered the trial with no preconceived notions. He also said that he was ambivalent about the death penalty. He saw the rationale behind having it but the crime committed would have to be especially heinous for it to be applied.

Attenborough huddled with Allyson for a few moments before announcing that Juror Number 157 was acceptable. Sadly for Quinn, the alternates were no better. He pegged one that might side with the defense but that was iffy at best. He had hoped to focus on one juror during his case – to convince one of the 12 that either his client was innocent or that his client didn't deserve the death penalty. He would probably still do that but his consultant had told him that there were no obvious candidates. She would watch the jury during testimony and let him know if one appeared to be wavering.

But like Emily McGregor, she saw little hope of convincing any of them to spare the defendant if a guilty verdict was handed down.

Jonah Attenborough spent more than a week working on his opening statement to the jury. He had explained the concept to Allyson but he hadn't given her a preview. He knew this would be the state's introduction to the people who would decide Mayfield's fate. If he was stiff or pompous, the jury might dislike him. He had pondered allowing Allyson to deliver the opening. She had far more experience in front of a jury, particularly in front of a jury who didn't already know her.

In the end, he decided it was his job. He was the person the City of Emerald Cove had elected for the job. He spent hours practicing his delivery and memorizing his narrative so he could speak to the jury without notes. He decided it would make him seem warmer to them.

Over Quinn's strenuous objection, an eighteen-by-thirty inch portrait of Mary Beth Brockleman was hung on an easel at the side of the lectern from which Attenborough spoke. He had not chosen a stiff formal portrait. Instead he had opted for a snapshot taken of the young woman the day before she died.

She was on the beach in Emerald Cove, mugging for the camera. Jonah believed it painted a truer portrait of the woman than her senior picture would have.

He introduced himself and Allyson to the jury and gave a pointed glance to the picture that hung beside him.

"This trial is not about justice," he began, still talking to the picture before turning his head to the jurors. "It's not about the State of South Carolina or the City of Emerald Cove. As much as he wants everything to be about him, it's not even about the defendant. It's about the young woman you see in the picture hanging beside me. It's about Mary Beth Brockleman."

"This picture tells you a story of how she lived her life. She was vibrant and fun-loving. She was exciting and excitable. In some ways, she was the typical teenager you see every day. But it's not the whole story. Mary Beth was a gifted student who played the violin. You won't hear about that during testimony. She was a dutiful daughter and a faithful friend. That won't come up either. You won't hear about her winning the school spelling bee in fourth grade or breaking her wrist when she fell off her bike at age fifteen."

"No one will sit on the witness stand and tell you about the time when she was in second grade that Mary Beth convinced the workers in the cafeteria to send chicken soup home with her because her mother wasn't feeling well. You won't learn of how she hoped to one day become a physical therapist because she saw how much difference that profession had made on a friend who was seriously injured in a car accident."

"You should hear those things about Mary Beth. You should hear about those things and all the other amazing things she did during her life in about seventy years when she died of natural causes surrounded by her loving family. But you won't."

Attenborough turned his back on the jury to glare at the defense table.

"You won't hear all the wonderful things Mary Beth Brockleman did and would have done because the defendant insisted that the world revolves around him. So instead, my colleague and I are forced to introduce you to someone far less worthy of your attention, the defendant, Jonathan Mayfield."

"Instead of learning about the time Mary Beth climbed on the roof of her house to rescue a stranded cat, you'll hear a medical examiner talk about how the man sitting at that table robbed her of her dignity and of her life. Instead of listening to people ponder Mary Beth's limitless future; you'll listen to a forensic pathologist recount the last moments of her life."

"Instead of hearing us celebrate Mary Beth's successes; you'll hear testimony from Mr. Mayfield's accomplice, describing how the defendant's teenage crush turned into an adult obsession. You'll hear testimony of how the defendant tracked the victim, Mary Beth Brockleman, first to college and finally to the Roadside Inn in Emerald Cove where he raped her, murdered her and then, the final indignity, abused the corpse."

Attenborough's gaze left Mayfield, who had studiously studied a notepad on the table in front of him, and returned to the jurors.

"When the defense stands in front of you, they will try to make this case about different things. They will attack the science that links the defendant to the crime through DNA evidence. The defense will try to make this about the detective who not only tirelessly tracked down Mary Beth's killer across three states but who also put an end to a decade-long crime spree in those states, along the way. Mr. Mayfield's attorney will try to paint the defendant's lifelong friends as suspects, and question their motive as to why they are willing to testify on the state's behalf."

"The defense will do whatever it can to draw your attention to anything besides what this trial is truly about."

Attenborough went down the row of jurors, first in the front and then in the back, looking each of them in the eye.

"Do not allow that, ladies and gentlemen," he implored them. "Keep your attention focused on what the evidence will prove to you. Do not let this trial become about anything more that this young woman – Mary Beth Brockleman – and about the man who drugged her, raped her, strangled her to death and then desecrated her body. Thank you."

The initial witnesses were hardly exciting but the prosecutors had to prove many things in order to keep the case from being overturned on appeal. They had to prove a crime was committed, first of all.

To that end, the state first called Dr. Darren Wright, the Emerald Cove medical examiner who had pronounced the body dead. He testified that he arrived at the Roadside Inn at 5:45 AM, after a call from the Emerald Cove Police Department. He examined the body and issued an initial ruling of death by misadventure. The ruling would permit the state to autopsy the body to determine exactly why the victim had died. It would also permit the police to begin an investigation.

Dr. Wright was forthcoming to the jury about his lack of experience in homicides, and the state didn't introduce him as an expert in forensic science. They simply called him as the doctor who had certified that death had occurred and issued the initial cause of death.

"That, first and foremost, is why I was reluctant to declare the case a homicide," he said. "I know I lack the experience and the expertise. My ruling of misadventure means it wasn't natural causes. The hand prints on her neck drew me to that conclusion. It also meant that I didn't believe it was a suicide. I have performed autopsies during my time as the Emerald Cove Medical Examiner. State law requires an autopsy for all unattended deaths. I knew I was out of my depth on this case, so I contacted an old acquaintance of mine. He is one of the foremost forensic pathologists on the East Coast if not in the nation. He agreed to come to Emerald Cove to perform the post-mortem examination of the body."