Chapter 21

Allyson asked for a sidebar with Judge Manning and the prosecution before the second afternoon session opened. Jonah Attenborough joined them at the bench.

"Your Honor, the state asks for the Court's indulgence," Allyson opened. "Because of Mr. Quinn's constant interruptions over matters than have already been decided and Mr. Mayfield's outbursts, the state's case is not as far along with this witness as we'd hoped. I'm positive that Mr. Quinn will wish to spend a considerable amount of time cross-examining Mr. Currence. Because of the expense of housing this witness and his minders, the state asks that you extend the afternoon session until we can conclude direct examination of this witness."

Wyatt Quinn knew that the state wanted to end the day's testimony on something dramatic so the jurors would have all night to mull it over. After his discussion with his client, Quinn had a good idea of what that testimony might be. He would prefer to be able to begin cross-examination immediately after the bombshell Currence was likely to drop.

"I resent the fact that Ms. Granger blames her lack of preparation on me," Quinn said.

"Lack of preparation?" Allyson shot back hotly. "You've bitched and moaned a hundred times over stuff you've already pissed and whined about in pretrial motions. Still, you look like a damned Jack-in-the-Box with how often your ass leaves the chair."

"Ms. Granger!" Manning said sharply, "have some decorum."

"I apologize, Your Honor," Allyson said insincerely. "But you still have to admit I have a point."

"You do," Manning conceded. He, too, was cognizant of how much housing and feeding Ricky Currence was costing Emerald Cove. The city had to pay the neighboring county for the cost of keeping Currence there. They would also have to reimburse the state of West Virginia for the two troopers who accompanied Currence and for the cost of transportation.

"You have to take into account the jurors' sensibilities," Quinn said, frowning at the judge's implied rebuke.

"I also agree with Mr. Quinn," Manning stated. "I am not going to keep the jury here indefinitely and then drag them back in early tomorrow morning. That's unconscionable. I will allow the state to continue until five fifteen. That will allow the jurors time to return to their hotel and get to supper on time. We will take a ten minute recess at four. If you can't wrap up by five fifteen, you'll have to continue tomorrow."

Allyson would have preferred another hour but she understood that Manning had given her all he was going to.

"Thank you, Your Honor," she said.

Manning nodded and had a bailiff bring the jurors back from their extended break. He explained the situation to them in blunt terms, telling them that the prohibitive cost of keeping the witness in South Carolina meant that court would be extended until the witness was excused.

A few jurors frowned at the news, perhaps figuring they would be sitting in their seats well into the night. Still, it wasn't as though they had a lot to look forward to at the hotel.

"I fully understand that we can't expect you to maintain your attention level for hours on end," Manning continued. "I have agreed to extend our session until 5:15 this afternoon, and not a minute later. I truly hope this will not present any further hardship for you. We truly appreciate the service you're performing for us."

Allyson walked Currence through the Gallia Crew's deteriorating relationship with Mark Shrekengost for a few more minutes, planting the seed that part of Mayfield's motive was his intense dislike of the interloper.

The next step was to present the other portion of Mayfield's motive: his infatuation with Mary Beth Brockleman.

Currence testified that the defendant had spent most of his middle school years pursuing Mary Beth. She had always rebuffed his advances, sometimes cruelly. But she had the protection of Mark Shrekengost, who scared the boys into keeping her safe.

"They dated exclusively from sixth grade until their junior year of high school," Currence said. "They were the perfect couple, at least to my eyes. Their breakup was a surprise. The first thing Jonathan did was to ask her out. Once again, she turned him down."

"At any time, did Mary Beth Brockleman show any interest – romantic or sexually – toward the defendant, Jonathan Mayfield?" Allyson posed.

"None," Currence said. "She positively despised him – and the rest of us. I doubt she would fish our heads out of mud hole if we were drowning."

Currence closed his eyes and shook his head sadly.

"No, that's wrong," he said. "She would have helped us if we needed help. That's the way she was. To portray her any other way is completely unfair. She was a very nice person."

"How did Mr. Mayfield take her rejection?" Allyson wondered.

"The same way he always did," Currence answered. "He was angry. He became more and more obsessed by her."

"I object to the characterization, Your Honor," Quinn said. "That clearly is the witness' opinion. He is not a mental health professional and is not qualified to offer any interpretation of my client's state of mind."

"I know the bastard," Currence said angrily. "I've spent my entire life around him."

"Mr. Currence!" Judge Manning said loudly. "You will be silent while an objection is pending. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Currence said. "But I do know him."

"I believe that you do," Manning stated. "Even so, you do not have the requisite training to offer a diagnosis to the jury. The objection is sustained. Ms. Granger, you may rephrase the question or move along."

Allyson nodded and looked at her notes.

"Mr. Currence, did Mr. Mayfield do anything out of the ordinary in regard to Miss Brockleman?" she asked.

"Very little of what he did in that regard was what I would consider 'ordinary'," Currence answered.

"Can you give us an example?" Allyson asked.

"He insisted that we – he, Trevor, Joey and me – arrange our schedule so that one of us was in every class with her," Currence said. "If he found out – if one of us overheard – that she planned to be somewhere at a particular time, he insisted that one of us – or all of us – be there, too. We trailed her to the mall, to the movies, out to dinner with her family. He stole a pair of her underwear out of her gym bag. He threatened other guys who asked her out. As I stated, nothing he did was ordinary when it came to Mary Beth Brockleman."

"How did Miss Brockleman react?" Allyson asked.

"She ignored us," Currence said. "That only made it worse for her."

"And how did Mark Shrekengost react?" Allyson wondered.

"His reaction was immediate," Currence said. "He told us we had better stay away from her unless she gave us the okay to proceed."

"But it didn't stop you from harassing her, did it?" Allyson put forth.

"No, it didn't," Currence told the jury. "What we did was to become better at sneaking around. We couldn't do anything about her seeing us in her classes. But if we knew she was going to the movies, we wouldn't go as a group. Uh, well, despite our reputations, we didn't have trouble getting dates. A lot of girls were willing to put up with us in order to see some of the benefits – an uptick in their popularity, invitations to the best parties and the fact we had money to spend on dates."

"Did Mr. Mayfield's attention to Mary Beth Brockleman wane after you graduated high school and she moved away?" Allyson inquired.

"If anything it intensified," Currence said. "Uh, all of us moved to different locations – near the victims we selected. We decided we needed to keep an eye on them until the statute of limitation expired on sexual assault. We had been warned that the biggest threat we faced was from someone from an outside jurisdiction getting his teeth into the case and tracking everyone down."

"Who warned you of this?" Allyson interrupted.

"The Sheriff of Gallia County," Currence said. "He warned us that we needed to confine our activities to a jurisdiction that he could control. That meant we stayed away from anything in the city limits. That would be the jurisdiction of the city police there and Sheriff Stone wouldn't oversee the investigation. I'm living proof that the man was right. If Jonathan hadn't killed Mary Beth Brockleman down here, I'd be free right now."

"I object to the witness' answer," Quinn said. "He is assuming facts not in evidence."

"Sustained," Manning answered. "The last sentence is stricken from the record. The jury should disregard it."

"After graduation, what did Mr. Mayfield do?" Allyson asked.

"He found out that Mary Beth was going to attend college at Ohio Southern," Currence said. "That was announced at our end of the year assembly. We had heard that she planned to attend Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. That's why Jonathan decided to go to Midland College. That's only 15 minutes away from OU. When he learned that Mary Beth was headed to a different college, he had to scramble. He couldn't get into Ohio Southern. You have to have a really high GPA, a solid SAT score and a strong background in community service to be accepted there. Jonathan had none of the above. So he switched at the last minute to Xavier in Cincinnati. He had been accepted there – probably because his father went there – and he was back to being just a few minutes away from his quarry."

"Your Honor," Quinn said, "the last statement is prejudicial and is pure speculation."

Currence wanted to reply but he held his tongue.

"I can rephrase the last statement, Your Honor," he offered.

"That would be best," Manning said. "The last sentence is stricken."

"Mr. Mayfield went to Xavier and he was again only a few miles away from the victim in this case," Currence restated. He looked up expectantly at Judge Manning, who nodded his appreciation.

"Did you, personally, accompany Mr. Mayfield when he tried to be near Ms. Brockleman?" Allyson asked.

"I did," Currence said. "I lived in Huntington, West Virginia, but I spent as much time in Cincinnati and Batavia as I did at my apartment. Jonathan always seemed to know when Mary Beth was going out somewhere. Her first semester in college, Jonathan focused on making friends with people on the perimeter of her circle of friends. We would go to Batavia once or twice a month that first year. Mary Beth always ignored us. She never even acknowledged our presence. She didn't look our way. She didn't accept the drinks that Jonathan bought and sent over – and she never, not ever, was alone for even a moment. She always had at least three friends with her. I mean when she went to the bar, when she went to the bathroom, when she went home. She was never alone."

"Were the trips to where Mary Beth attended school the only time you followed her?" Allyson asked.

"Not hardly," Currence said. "We found out she was heading to Dayton to an air show one weekend and Jonathan insisted all of us needed to make the trip, too."

"Did you?" Allyson pushed.

"Yeah," Currence said with a frown. "We met in Cincinnati and drove up from there. It took us a while to locate Mary Beth – and this time she only had one friend with her. Jonathan was completely giddy over that fact. He had insisted that we all packed our 'Rape Kits' in the trunk."

"Your plan was to sexually assault Mary Beth Brockleman at the air show?" Allyson asked in amazement.

"Either at the air show or at her hotel afterward," Currence admitted. "We found out she was staying in a single room at the Comfort Inn in Dayton. We also had rooms there."

"Did you sexually assault Miss Brockleman in Dayton?" Allyson asked in a harsh voice.

"No," Currence said, shaking her head. "She saw us and completely disappeared. We looked all over the place but she was gone. The desk clerk at the hotel said she had checked out."

"How did Mr. Mayfield react?" Allyson inquired.

"With anger," Currence said.

Allyson longed to delve into the events that transpired later that evening but Judge Manning had ruled in overly prejudicial to the defense. Mayfield had been charged in the events of that evening – along with Currence and Joey Straight – but he hadn't been convicted. The rest of the evening would go unsaid until it came time to determine Mayfield's sentence.