Chapter Four
Four
After the closing arguments, the jury was instructed to retire to the jury room to deliberate. It took them under four hours to reach a verdict.
At the defendant’s chair, Nelson could sense a pair of eyes burning a hole at the back of his head.
He swiveled at the waist to look at the court audience just behind him.
As he did, he immediately spotted Sam, sitting three rows behind the plaintiff’s table.
Her eyes were like laser beams aimed directly at him.
This time, Nelson wasn’t able to hold her stare.
As far as he knew, yesterday had been the first time that Sam had heard about his affair with Candice, and even he had to admit that that was a horrible way to find out that your husband had cheated on you.
He turned to face the court again.
As the jurors took their seats, an air of excitement filled the room.
The court clerk took his place and faced the jury box.
The jury’s foreperson stood up. Her name was Martha and she was an average woman in just about everything – height, body type, hair, looks…
but to Nelson, she looked like a typical Karen – the kind of woman that would pick a fight in a grocery store over two cents just for the hell of it.
As she stood up, her anxious gaze pinged to Nelson for a fraction of a second before moving back to the clerk.
After the clerk recited the customary introduction to a verdict, naming the state, the county and the court that they were in, followed by the defendant’s name and the case number, he addressed the jury’s foreperson.
‘Has the jury reached a verdict upon which you have all agreed?’
Silence settled over the room like a heavy morning fog.
Oakfield and Bryant both sat up taller in their seats, their breaths held in their chests as if they were professional free divers.
Right then, for the first time since the trial had started six days ago, Nelson was overcome by fear – the kind of fear that rattled a person’s core and paralyzed them in place.
Despite everything that had happened until then, there was a tiny part of Nelson’s brain that still refused to accept the past nine weeks as reality, telling him that things would turn out fine, just like they always did.
But that tiny part of his brain had finally been overruled.
From the defendant’s chair, Nelson heard Martha lightly clear her throat before straightening up her shoulders. Every pair of eyes in that courtroom was on her, and she knew it.
‘Yes, we have,’ she replied. The nod that she gave the courtroom was anxious, but firm.
‘On count one,’ the clerk asked. ‘Criminal domestic violence, and physical abuse against Samantha Stewart – how do you find the defendant?’
For Nelson, time seemed to slow down to an absolute crawl. He knew that Martha’s next word would be life changing for him… and he knew what that word would be even before it left her lips.
‘Guilty,’ Martha replied, her voice loud and clear.
And there it was – six letters… two syllables… one word – a word that would tarnish Nelson’s past, change his present and destroy his future.
The entire courtroom seemed to shift in place, with shouts and comments coming from every corner.
Nelson, on the other hand, stood silent and completely still…
his eyes straight ahead… his heart beating at the bottom of his throat, as he watched his whole life starting to collapse right in front of him.
The clerk waited until the room had quietened down again before he asked the foreperson his second and final question.
‘On count two – false imprisonment and captivity of Samantha Stewart – how do you find the defendant?’
Nelson wasn’t listening anymore, but it wasn’t out of choice.
This was a defense mechanism move by his brain to try to shut out any new aggressors that could hurt him further.
Sounds became muffled, as if Nelson was underwater…
but it didn’t matter. Nelson saw Martha’s lips move, and even without hearing a sound…
even without being a lip reader… he knew what she had said – one word… not two.
Life collapse successfully completed.
The room erupted in shouts and hushed voices.
Nelson closed his eyes for a moment, while Judge Reeves restored order in her courtroom.
That done, she informed the attorneys and the defendant that sentencing would take place in two weeks’ time – directly after the pre-sentencing investigation.
She then instructed the court marshals to take Nelson into custody, but before they got to him, Nelson had a chance to turn around and face the court audience one last time, and this time, it was his eyes that lasered in on Samantha… and they were full of rage.
‘You fucking bitch,’ he shouted, his voice booming across the courtroom.
‘If you think that this is the last that you’ll see of me, then you’ve got another think coming.
I know everything about you… everything…
and no matter where you go, someday, I will find you.
I can promise you that. I will haunt your fucking dreams, you bitch.
Good luck looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. ’
The two court marshals finally managed to restrain Nelson and drag him away, but as the audience trickled out of the courtroom, Samantha stayed behind, her breathing erratic and out of sync…
her legs just a little unsteady because if there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that Nelson Stewart didn’t make empty promises.