The Good Daughter

  Sam could still remember packing Charlie’s things after her disastrous New York visit. Every T-shirt Charlie owned had some variation of the Duke Blue Devils logo.

  Sam asked Kelly, “The woman in the Devils shirt. Did she hurt anybody?”

  “No, ma’am. She was sitting there across from Mrs. Pinkman looking at her hands.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t hurt anybody?” Sam made her voice firm. “This is very important, Kelly. You need to tell me if the woman in the Devils shirt hurt anyone.”

  “Well.” Kelly studied Sam’s face, looking for cues. “I don’t know if she did, on account of I was sitting.”

  Very slowly, Sam began to nod again. “I think you saw the Devils woman hurt someone, even though you were sitting down. The evidence shows that you saw her, Kelly. There’s no point in lying.”

  Kelly’s uncertainty returned. “I don’t mean to lie to you. I know you’re trying to help me.”

  Sam made her voice firm. “Then admit the truth. You saw the woman in the Devils shirt hurt someone.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Kelly nodded, too. “Now that I think on it, maybe she hurt somebody.”

  “Did she hurt you?”

  Kelly hesitated. She searched Sam’s expression for guidance. “Maybe?”

  “I can’t use ‘maybe’ to help you, Kelly.” Sam tried again, declaring, “You saw the woman in the blue Devils shirt hurt someone else who was in the hallway.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Kelly seemed more sure of herself now. She kept nodding her head, as if the motion informed her thinking. “That’s what I saw.”

  Sam asked, “Did the Devils woman hurt Mrs. Pinkman?” She leaned forward. “Because Mrs. Pinkman was right there, Kelly. You told me as much not a few seconds ago. Do you think the Devils woman could have hurt Mrs. Pinkman?”

  “I think so.” Kelly continued to nod, because that was part of the pattern. She denied the statement, then she allowed that the statement might be true, then she accepted the statement as fact. All that Sam had to do was speak authoritatively, tell the girl the answer, nod a few times, then wait for the lie to be regurgitated back to her.

  Sam said, “According to eye witnesses, Kelly, you saw exactly what the Devils woman did.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said. “That’s what I seen happen. That she hurt her.”

  “How did the Devils woman hurt Mrs. Pinkman?” Sam waved her hands in the air, trying to think of examples. “Did she kick her? Did she punch her?”

  “She slapped her with her hand.”

  Sam looked at the hand she had waved in the air, certain the motion had put the idea in Kelly’s head. “You’re sure you saw the Devils woman slap Mrs. Pinkman?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it happened like you said. She slapped her across the face, and I could hear the noise all the way to where I was sitting in the hall.”

  Sam realized the enormity of the lie. Without thinking, she had implicated her own sister in assault. “So, what you’re saying is that you saw with your own eyes when the Devils woman slapped Mrs. Pinkman across the face?”

  Kelly continued to nod. There were tears in her eyes. She clearly wanted to please Sam, as if pleasing her would somehow unlock the secret to getting her out of this living night-mare.

  Kelly whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Sam didn’t push her further, because the exercise had proven her point. Given the right kind of leading question, the right tone, Kelly Wilson probably would have said Charlie murdered Judith Pinkman with her own hands.

  The girl was so suggestible, she could have been hypnotized.

  Sam checked her phone. Ninety seconds remained, plus the one-minute buffer. “Did the police talk to you yesterday before Mr. Rusty did?”

  “Yes, ma’am. They talked to me at the hospital.”

  “Did they read you your Miranda rights before they spoke with you?” Sam could tell she did not understand. “Did they say, ‘You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to counsel’. Did they say any of that to you?”

  “No, ma’am, not in the hospital, because I would’a remembered that from the TV.”

  Sam leaned across the table again. “Kelly, this is very important. Did you say anything to the police before you talked to my father?”

  “This one older fella, he kept talking to me. He rode with me in the ambulance to the hospital, and then he stayed in my room to make sure I was okay.”

  Sam doubted the man was concerned about her well-being. “Did you answer any of his questions? Did he interrogate you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were you handcuffed when he talked to you?”

  “I ain’t sure. In the ambulance, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, no, not then. Not that I remember.”

  “Do you remember exactly when you were handcuffed?”

  “It was at some point.”

  Sam wanted to throw her pen across the room. “Kelly, it’s very important that you try to remember. Did they interrogate you at the hospital before my father told you not to answer any questions?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t remember much from yesterday.”

  “But the older fella was always with you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, except when he had to go to the bathroom, and then a police officer came and sat with me.”

  “Was the older fella in a police uniform?”

  “No, ma’am. He was in a suit and a tie.”

  “Did he tell you his name?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Do you remember when you were told your Miranda— When they said, ‘You have a right to remain silent. You have a right to counsel?’” She waited. “Kelly, do you remember when you were told those words?”

  Kelly could clearly see this was important. “Maybe in the police car on the way to the jail this morning?”

  “But it wasn’t at the hospital?”

  “No, ma’am. It was sometime this morning, but I don’t know what time exactly.”

  Sam sat back in the chair. She tried to think this through. If Kelly had not been read her Miranda rights until this morning, then anything she said before that time could technically be inadmissible in court. “Are you sure this morning was the first time they told you your rights?”

  “Well, I know this morning it was the older fella that done it.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “Maybe if he did it before, you can see it on the videotape.”

  “What videotape?”

  “The one they made of me at the hospital.”

  11

  Sam sat alone at the defense table. Her purse was on the floor. Her cane was folded up inside. She studied her notes from the interview with Kelly Wilson, pretending as if she did not know that at least one hundred people were sitting behind her. Without question, the majority of the spectators were locals. The heat of their white-hot rage made sweat roll down her back.

  One of them could be the person who had stabbed Rusty.

  Judging by the furious whispering, Sam gathered that many of them would gladly stab her, too.

  Ken Coin coughed into his hand. The county prosecutor was sitting with a veritable phalanx: a doughy, fresh-faced second chair, an older man with a brush-broom mustache, and the obligatory attractive young blonde woman. In New York, this type of woman would be wearing a well-cut suit and expensive heels. The Pikeville version had her looking more like a Catholic nun.

  Ken coughed again. He wanted Sam to look at him, but she would not. A perfunctory handshake was all that she had allowed. Any gratitude that Coin believed was owed to him for killing Daniel Culpepper had been erased by his scurrilous behavior. Sam was not a resident of Pikeville. She would never return. There was no need to pretend she had any affinity for the dirty, underhanded bastard. Coin was the type of prosecutor who made all prosecutors look bad. Not only because of the cat-and-mouse he had played with the arraignment, but because of the videotape that had been made at the hospital.

/>   Whatever was on the recording could hang Kelly Wilson.

  There was no telling what the girl had said. Based on Sam’s brief time with her, she did not doubt that Kelly Wilson could be talked into admitting that she had assassinated Abraham Lincoln. The legal issue, perhaps the most important motion that Rusty would argue, would be whether or not the film of Kelly should be admissible in court. If Kelly had not been read her Miranda rights before she answered questions on the record, or if it was clear that she did not understand her rights, then the video should not be shown to the jury.

  Technically, that was how it was supposed to work.

  But this was a legal matter. There were always workarounds.

  Ken Coin would argue that Miranda did not matter because Kelly had voluntarily made the recorded statements. There was one giant legal hurdle in his way. In order for the video to be admissible, Coin had to prove that a reasonable person—fortunately, not Kelly Wilson herself—would assume that Kelly was not in police custody when the statements were recorded. If Kelly believed that she was under arrest, that handcuffs and fingerprint impressions and a mugshot were imminent, then she was entitled to the reading of her rights.

  Ergo, no Miranda rights, no film shown to the jury.

  At least that was how it was supposed to work.

  There were other weak links in the system, including the mood of the judge. Very rarely did you find a completely impartial figure on the bench. They tended to lean toward the prosecution or the defense. No judge liked to be appealed, but as a case moved higher up the chain, it became increasingly more difficult for a defendant to argue that a mistake had been made.

  No judge liked to reverse a lower judge.

  Sam closed her notepad. She glanced behind her. The Wilsons sat with Lenore. Sam had talked with them for less than five minutes before the general public was allowed into the courtroom. Cameras clicked as photographers caught Sam making eye contact with the killer’s parents. Video cameras seemed to be banned from the courtroom, but there were plenty of reporters recording every moment with their pens.

  This was not the appropriate setting for a reassuring smile, so Sam nodded to Ava, then to Ely. Both nodded back, their jaws clenched as they clung to one another. Their clothes were stiff with newness, the creases from hangers and folds pronounced on their arms and shoulders. The first thing they had asked Sam after establishing Kelly’s disposition was when they would be able to return to their home.

  Sam had been unable to provide a definitive answer.

  The Wilsons took the lack of information with a type of resignation that seemed ingrained in their souls. They were clearly part of that forgotten swath of poor, rural people. They were accustomed to waiting for the system to play out, usually not in their favor. The hollowed looks in their eyes reminded Sam of the images of refugees in magazines. Perhaps there were parallels. Ava and Ely Wilson were completely lost, forced into an unfamiliar world, their sense of safety, their sense of peace, everything that they cherished from their life before, was gone.

  Sam reminded herself that Lucy Alexander and Douglas Pinkman were gone, too.

  Lenore leaned over and whispered something to Ava. The woman nodded. Sam noted the time. The hearing was about to begin.

  Kelly Wilson’s entrance was announced by the distant jingle of chains, as if Santa Claus and his sleigh were on the other side of the wall. The bailiff opened the door. Cameras clicked. Murmurs filled the courtroom.

  Kelly was ushered in by four armed guards, each of them so large that the girl was lost in a sea of flesh. She was reduced to shuffling her feet because they had put her in four-point restraints. The guard on the right held her by the arm. His fingers overlapped. The man was so muscular he could have picked up Kelly one-handed and placed her in the chair.

  Sam was glad that he was standing beside Kelly. The moment the girl saw her parents, her knees gave out. The guard kept her from falling to the floor. Kelly began to wail.

  “Mama—” She tried to reach out, but her hands were chained to her waist. “Daddy!” she yelled. “Please!”

  Sam was up and across the room before she could think about how she had managed to move so quickly. She grabbed Kelly’s hands. “Look at me.”

  The girl would not look away from her parents. “Mama, I’m so sorry.”

  Sam squeezed Kelly’s hands harder, just enough to cause pain. “Look at me,” she demanded.

  Kelly looked at Sam. Her face was wet with tears. Her nose was running. Her teeth chattered.

  “I’m here,” Sam said, holding firm to her hands. “You’re okay. Keep looking at me.”

  “We all right?” the bailiff asked. He was an older man, but the hand resting on the butt of his taser was steady.

  Sam said, “Yes. We’re all right.”

  The guards unlocked the chains from Kelly’s ankles, her wrists, her waist.

  “I can’t do this,” Kelly whispered.

  “You’re okay,” Sam insisted, willing her to be so. “Remember how we talked about people watching you.”

  Kelly nodded. She used her sleeve to wipe her nose, holding firm to Sam’s hands.

  Sam said, “You need to be strong. Don’t upset your parents. They want you to be a big girl. All right?”

  Kelly nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’re okay,” Sam repeated.

  The chains hit the floor. One of the guards leaned down and gathered them in one hand.

  Sam leaned into the girl’s shoulder as they walked to the table. Sam sat down. The guard pushed Kelly down into the chair beside her.

  Kelly looked back at her parents. “I’m okay,” she told them, her voice quivering. “I’m okay.”

  The door opened to the judge’s chamber.

  The court clerk said, “All rise for Judge Stanley Lyman.”

  Sam nodded to Kelly, indicating that she should stand. As the judge walked to the bench, Kelly grabbed Sam’s hand again. Her palms were soaked with sweat.

  Stan Lyman appeared to be Rusty’s age, absent the avuncular spring in his step. Judges were a varied breed. Some were confident enough to simply take their place at the bench. Others sought to establish their dominance the moment they entered the courtroom. Stan Lyman fell into the latter category. He scowled as he scanned the gallery, the overflowing prosecution table. His gaze stopped on Sam. He performed an almost mechanical assessment of every section of her body, as if processing her through an MRI. She had not been so thoroughly inspected by a man since her last physical.

  He banged his gavel, his eyes still on Sam. “Be seated.”

  Sam sat, pulling Kelly down beside her. The unwelcome butterflies returned. She wondered if Charlie was watching from the gallery.

  The clerk announced, “This is case number OA 15-925, Dickerson County versus Kelly Rene Wilson, for arraignment.” She turned to Ken Coin. “Counsel, please state your name for the record.”

  Coin stood and addressed the judge. “Good afternoon, Your Honor. Kenneth C. Coin, Darren Nickelby, Eugene ‘Cotton’ Henderson, and Kaylee Collins for the county.”

  Lyman gave a stern nod. “Good afternoon.”

  Sam stood again. “Your Honor, Samantha Quinn for Miss Wilson, who is present.”

  “Afternoon.” Lyman nodded again. “This arraignment will qualify as a probable cause hearing. Miss Quinn, if you and Miss Wilson will stand for arraignment.”

  Sam nodded for Kelly to stand beside her. The girl was shaking again. Sam did not hold her hand. Kelly would be in and out of courtrooms for the next several years. She needed to learn to stand on her own.

  “Miss Quinn.” Lyman stared down at Sam from the bench. He had gone off-script. “You will remove those sunglasses in my courtroom.”

  Sam was momentarily bewildered by the request. Her lenses had been darkened for so many years that she hardly remembered. “Your Honor, these are my prescription glasses. They’re tinted for a medical condition.”

  “Come up here.” He waved her to the b
ench. “Let me see them.”

  Sam felt the mad thumping of her heart in her chest. One hundred sets of eyes were on her back. Cameras were clicking. Reporters were noting every word. Ken Coin coughed into his hand again, but said nothing to vouch for her.

  Sam left her cane in her purse. She burned with humiliation as she limped toward the judge. The cameras sounded like dozens of grasshoppers rubbing together their legs. The images they captured would be printed in newspapers, perhaps shown online where Sam’s colleagues would see them. The stories that accompanied the photos would likely delve into why she needed her glasses. The locals in the gallery, the ones who had been around for years, would gladly provide the details. They were scrutinizing Sam’s gait, trying to see how much damage the bullet had done.

  She was a veritable freak at the circus sideshow.

  At the bench, Sam’s hand trembled as she removed her glasses. The harsh fluorescent light stabbed into her corneas. She told the judge, “Please be careful with them. I didn’t bring a spare.”

  Lyman took the glasses, roughly, then held them up for inspection. “Were you not told to dress appropriately for my courtroom?”

  Sam looked down at her outfit, the same variation on the black silk blouse and flowing black pants she wore every day. “I beg your pardon?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “Armani,” she told the judge. “May I have my glasses returned, please?”

  He placed them on the bench with a hard tap. “You may take your place.”

  Sam checked the lenses for smudges. She slipped on the glasses. She turned back around. She searched for Charlie in the crowd, but all she could see were the vaguely familiar faces, older now, of people she recognized from her childhood.

  The walk back was longer than the walk to the bench. She reached out for the table. At the last minute, she saw Ben sitting in the gallery directly behind Ken Coin. He winked at her, smiling his encouragement.

  Kelly took Sam’s hand as they stood together. She repeated Sam’s encouragement back to her. “You’re okay.”

  “I am, thank you.” Sam let the girl hold her hand. She was too rattled to do otherwise.