Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Including Bo’s notebook. Maybe he was the coward Nate had always thought. She couldn’t argue that point now.
But he’d left a few things behind, hadn’t he?
As Cal had said, Fuck Bo Lake.
They didn’t need his DNA. They had themselves.
Sam recounted the evening with Glenda. Everything Jill had read—and would read to the court if needed.
Sam recounted Bo’s response to these things.
His involvement with a private investigator connected to Mr. Wheeler.
Mr. Wheeler had lodged some objections, and not everything would get through, but enough.
Enough.
“Ms. Price. For fifteen years you tried to convince anyone who would listen that Benjamin Bennet was the murderer of Marie Bennet. No one listened. Why should they listen now?”
“Because I was right. My father didn’t kill Marie. So who did? I think the answer is obvious.”
“She’s a liar!”
The judge immediately hit his gavel. Because it was Ben yelling.
Sam didn’t grin. She didn’t pump her fist in satisfaction. But she did look at Cal, gave him a little good-job nod. This entire line of questioning had been his idea.
And it was going to break Benjamin Bennet. Once and for all.
“Mr. Bennet, this is your one and only warning,” the judge said, dead serious. “Not another word, or you will be back in your cell.”
Ben fumed. But he shut up.
Now it was Glenda’s turn to twist the final knife.
*
Jill was beyond nervous. She had never felt so … so … so … she didn’t even have words for it, and she had an excellent vocabulary. But nothing in her life had prepared her for this.
Mr. Vanderbilt, Mr. Wheeler, and the judge were currently discussing whether the judge would allow Jill to be sworn in to translate for Grandma, who would sign her answers if allowed.
If they didn’t let it happen, they would ask if Jill could read Grandma’s statements, and if that didn’t happen, they would introduce Grandma’s typed statements.
Sam’s testimony already supported the information about Bo. Jill could also be called to testify to support what Grandma had said or done if Mr. Vanderbilt thought it was necessary.
But after a long, drawn-out wait, the judge announced they would both be sworn in. Glenda as witness, Jill as translator.
“This is ludicrous!” Ben was talking to his lawyer, but he was getting loud enough his complaints echoed through the courtroom.
“Mr. Wheeler,” the judge said cooly. “Control your client. Mr. Vanderbilt, call your witness.”
It was time. Jill looked at her grandmother, who sat looking … frail. Nearly as frail as she’d looked when Jill had first moved to Montana and Grandma had been recovering from her stroke.
But Grandma got to her feet with her own strength, so Jill did the same. She moved behind Grandma’s slow but steady progress to the front of the courtroom.
They were both sworn in. Jill kept looking at Grandma for signs of distress, but all she saw was grim determination.
“Mrs. Harrington,” Mr. Vanderbilt began. “When did you first meet Marie Bennet?”
Jill watched as Grandma signed. They’d gone over a lot of the questions, though Cal and Vanderbilt had both warned them that they might need to go off script depending on Ben’s reactions. But Jill knew what to look for.
She had been instructed to translate directly, so essentially in first person. “I met Marie at her wedding to Benjamin Bennet,” Jill answered after interpreting Grandma’s signs.
“Were you friendly?”
“Yes. I was Marie’s closest neighbor. Marie often came to me for help. The first few times she came to me with an injury, I believed her story behind them. She fell. Had a run-in with a temperamental horse. Ranch work is hard. It made sense, at first.”
“When did you stop believing that?”
“After Cal was born. Sometimes she’d ask me to watch him overnight, and she would come for him in the morning looking stiff and injured.”
Grandma hadn’t shared that detail before. It hit Jill right in the heart.
“And you believe Mr. Bennet was the one who—”
“Objection!” Mr. Wheeler yelled, some of his lawyer polish fraying.
“I’ll rephrase,” Mr. Vanderbilt immediately said before the judge could reply to Mr. Wheeler.
Jill thought he’d had some reservations about Cal’s advice, but he was leaning into it now.
“When Marie Bennet came to you with her pregnancy news in 2000, and asked you to take the baby, was she … unstable?”
“Not at all. She knew exactly what she was doing. What she wanted. Giving up the fourth baby was the only way she knew how to protect all her children.”
“Protect her children from what?”
Jill inhaled. “Not what. Who. Benjamin Bennet.” Grandma pointed at Ben as if to emphasize Jill’s translation.
Ben’s face was twisted in a sneer. He was mottled red, vibrating with rage. But he didn’t say anything.
Did the jury see it? Would they understand it?
Mr. Vanderbilt asked for a few more clarifications and details. Jill was holding her ground. Feeling less and less nervous. She just focused on Grandma. On her hands moving and what each sign meant.
But then it was Mr. Wheeler’s turn to cross-examine, and Jill felt shaky with nerves all over again.
Grandma looked exactly the same. Frail, but calm. Detached.
“Mrs. Harrington, if all of this is true, how come Marie Bennet never took any of this to the police? There are absolutely no police reports or calls in the years you’ve mentioned.”
“Because she knew no one would believe her. She was isolated, manipulated, and terrified.”
“Why didn’t you go to the authorities then? If you had evidence.”
“For the same reason. I helped her the only way I knew how to.” Jill could feel the gravity to those words even though Grandma had signed them.
She could see the guilt in her grandmother’s eyes. That she hadn’t done enough. Jill had to try to work through the lump in her throat as Mr. Wheeler continued.
“You said she was clear in what she wanted to do with the baby born in 2000 that absolutely no medical records substantiate. You say that she wasn’t unstable,” Mr. Wheeler said. “She wasn’t emotional when she told you she wanted to hide her newborn infant from his father?”
Grandma didn’t sign this time. She looked right at Benjamin Bennet and opened her mouth. “Terrified,” Grandma said, her voice a rough, shaky scrape against the silence in the room. “Of him.”
Later, they would all agree that it was something about Grandma actually speaking that broke Benjamin Bennet. Once and for all.
“You fucking psycho bitch.”
Jill startled as Ben lunged. His lawyer managed to grab him and try to restrain him from leaping over the table, but it wasn’t going well as Ben pushed him out of the way and the bailiffs shouted instructions.
“You put ideas in her head!”
Grandma looked right at Ben. She tried to speak again, but no sound came out. Still, Jill saw her mouth move. She was mouthing the same word over and over.
Liar.
“You turned her against me.” Ben managed to get past his lawyer. Like he was going right after Grandma. “You turned them all against me.”
Even with his prison pallor, Ben was bigger and more intimidating than Jill. Still she scurried in between him and his path to Grandma. He sneered at her, reaching back like he was going to … hit her?
But the bailiffs had him then. He fought them, too, screaming at Grandma. On shaky legs, Jill grabbed Grandma’s hand. Grandma wasn’t shaking. She was looking down at Ben in disgust.
He was being held down now. One bailiff had a knee to his back while the other one was talking into his radio. Jill held on to Grandma while the bailiffs grappled with him and then two police officers moved into the room and began to handcuff him.
The judge ordered a recess, and as the police took over with Ben, the bailiffs began to usher everyone out of the courtroom.
Cal seemed to take charge of the moment for their group, finding her and Grandma and pulling them along until they were all outside, huddled together.
No one said anything at first. It was the plan. Cal’s plan had worked. But…
“He didn’t confess,” Jill said, looking at Cal.
“No, but he made a spectacle of himself. That’s what we were going for.” Cal had a strong arm wrapped around Glenda. “Come on. We’ve done our part. Let’s let the professionals take care of the rest. Vanderbilt will keep me updated.”
He kept a strong arm around Grandma all the way out to her truck, but Jill looked back at the courthouse praying it would all be enough.