Chapter 11 Bald Eagle #2
if they helped you put your groceries in the car or told you your taillight had a broken bulb.” For a moment, he turned away,
and then leaned in, confidingly. “They weren’t perfect. They had weaknesses. They were tempted by a seductive woman into doing
something that no self-respecting man should ever do, paying for sex outside his marriage. Emil’s wife was ill. They hadn’t
had a sexual relationship for years. Cary and his wife were at odds for a long time, and finally at war, although they were
working it out. Is that any excuse? No. You might say that they put themselves in harm’s way, but so does anybody who rides
a motorcycle or smokes a cigar. But most people who do things they shouldn’t do aren’t murdered for it.” He paused, as if
struggling to hear a sound in the far distance. “And now, they are gone. They’re gone forever.”
He talked about how Erica Doll Gardener would die alone.
He talked about the children whose dad, Cary Church, would “gradually become a photo on a wall in the hallway growing older with each passing year.” They would not have the love and financial support every child deserves from their dad.
They would have his life insurance benefits, but so would his killer, Felicity Wild.
“If she walks away from this charge, she will get that money. A huge amount of money, millions of dollars. Think about that. She will be rewarded for her evil and greedy actions unless you say no, that isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”
Israel Ronson described the discovery of the bodies, the false starts and final conclusions. He made air quotes to point out
how Felicity “didn’t know” who’d killed Emil Gardener, how she “panicked” when she found his body and called one of her “many
friends” to get that body out of her place and into a so-called “cold and lonely” snowbank.
“We’re not talking about a crime of passion. We’re talking about a plan by one person to live a rich and easy life and who
didn’t care whose lives she destroyed to make that possible. In fact, in all my years of being a prosecutor, I’ve never encountered
a person quite so cold and ambitious.”
Sam would admit he had to suppress a sigh as Ronson laid it on so thick, but that was a ploy right out of the playbook, exactly
what he was supposed to do, an emotional appeal to people who were new to all this and eager to be guided toward doing the
right thing.
Ronson was a very good-looking guy, slender and well over six feet, with a close crop of dense curly hair just dusted with
silver. Next to him, Sam looked like a kid wearing his new suit for prom. As he wound things up, Ronson gave the jurors a
look of surpassing tenderness and then, in what Sam would later tell me was a deliberate piece of theater, stood with his
arm resting confidingly on the rail in front of the jury box before he spoke again. He removed his glasses, glanced down at
them, and appeared to rub away a speck before he shook his head ruefully.
“That person is here in this courtroom now. She is there at the defense table, Felicity Claire Copeland Wild. No one else. Look at her, ladies and gentlemen. Her appearance is so lovely that everything I’m saying must be very hard for you to believe.
Frankly, it was hard for me to believe. I had to ask myself, Israel, is there another possibility?
” He went on to enumerate the uncertainties and then concluded, “There is no other possibility. The evidence will show that Felicity Wild is a very intelligent student of science, who would know that some poisons don’t leave a measurable trace.
” She lived alone, he would say, with few close friends, her only visitors her clients.
She could keep her secrets . . . she had the classic triad familiar from TV courtrooms: means, motive, and opportunity.
She had, further, behaved in a guilty way.
“If you found a friend dead in your bathroom, what would you do? Would you call someone to help you hide your friend’s body?
Or would you call the police, just as fast as you could?
Of course you would. An innocent woman would have called the police.
Even if she was a drug dealer or something.
Even if she had a meth lab in her backyard.
” He talked about the confusing letters Cary Church left behind.
“Why didn’t he just call the police? Or send an email?
Very strange behavior, almost as though somebody else wanted proof that Cary was changing his story. ”
I felt, rather than saw, Sam trying to suppress the impulse to react.
“The state will present four witnesses. They will be Michaela Doherty, the police officer who found Emil Gardener’s body in the snow; Karen White, the detective who interviewed Miss Wild and knew something was not adding up; a neighbor, Gray LeMay, who owns the condominium just below Felicity Wild’s and used to hear all manner of rather exotic noises coming from her neighbor’s place but right around New Year’s Eve, heard very distinct sounds of a vicious fight, and then a fall, as if something heavy was hitting the floor repeatedly; and the Dane County medical examiner, Dr. Moira McDermott, who was responsible for ascertaining the cause of death in two very difficult cases. ”
At last, he concluded with his regrets, of which he had many. Shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger, he pointed out
that not only did two good men die, but a young woman with “the whole package, brains and beauty and chances,” had wasted
her life. He said finally, “My esteemed colleague Sam Damiano, who is just about as gifted a lawyer as they come, will tell
you that none of this is true. He’ll say there’s somebody out there in the shadows who is literally getting away with murder
right now. But you already know the truth. Ugly as it seems, Felicity Wild killed Emil Gardener and Cary Church. She did it
for money. As intelligent and decent people, you will sadly but rightfully reach the inescapable conclusion and find Felicity
Wild guilty of murder in the first degree, for which she should rightfully go to prison for the rest of her life. I thank
you for your patience and for your service.”
Israel Ronson sat down, slumping a little, spent, having spoken earnestly and without notes for nearly an hour. The judge
called for a short recess as the jury, tight-lipped and wide-eyed, filed out. Felicity glanced at the strippers, acknowledging
them, and then me, with a smile that got no further than her tired eyes.
I whispered, “Please . . .” and she turned her gaze to the floor.
I ran out to the hall and out the door, where I breathed in lungsful of air. Even city late-spring air with its dank savor
of Lake Mendota was restorative after the funk of coffee breath and anxious sweat in the windowless courtroom.
On impulse, as a sort of sorbet for the darkness in my mind, I called my office.
Ivy thankfully wasn’t in that day, but I left a greeting for her and then talked to Marcus, who caught me up.
Things were heating up at Fuchsia. There was an offer for a TV show that Ivy was ready to “ink,” as Marcus put it, which would go the celeb-model shows one
better and do stories that dealt with real society as well as high society. There was, even more interestingly, a possible
relocation to Florida. He described Mother Sabrina’s vision for the location of the next Purple Palace, in Vero Beach, Florida,
a small sugar-sand city on a barrier island across the Indian River Lagoon. It would be a whole purple neighborhood, with
restaurants, Fuchsia-linked stores, maybe eventually a convention center and hotel.
“Florida? What? The whole operation?” I asked. “A real cultural destination. The next Rodeo Drive.”
“It could happen,” Marcus said. “Florida is the new New York.”
“I couldn’t live in Florida. Could you live in Florida?”
“I could live anywhere. I’m adaptable.”
“Ivy didn’t even send me an email!”
“She didn’t want to bother you,” he said. “And right, she would normally call you at six in the morning and get mad if you
didn’t pull over in traffic and take the call. This is Ivy trying to be respectful.”
Marcus was working on a story about how famous and beautiful people sometimes fell in love with ordinary and unbeautiful spouses.
Just good investigative journalism. “Reeno, I miss you so much! We have no fun here without you. I don’t meet hot girls. You
haven’t called in ages. Why did you call? Are you okay?”
“I don’t even know. This case and everything around it just keep getting nuttier.”
It felt so thoroughly blessed to natter away about approximately nothing.
I promised Marcus a real talk with all the trimmings as soon as I got a break, then ran back up the stairs and whirled through the door, nearly running into Sam.
I nodded, and he nodded. He was visibly thinner.
I was grateful for that. I’d thought he might look robust and his new girlfriend would be there to observe.
Would Nell still get her internship at Damiano, Chen, and Damiano?
Of course she would. The two things were not related.
Nell was a good lawyer. She was also a good sister, and I hadn’t told her that Sam and I were finished.
I didn’t want to make it real. I almost leaned my forehead against the cold wall, then thought of the desperate sweat that must have soaked into every surface of that place.
When I went back into the courtroom, I saw that someone had taken my seat. I would sit next to my mom—after all, who was I
kidding? Sally Zankow already seemed to have more respect for me because I was related to Miranda. As I made my way toward
her, I felt a touch on my arm and there was Claire. I had all but forgotten our long journey together. In my continuing parade
of things-in-real-life-that-you-thought-were-just-clichés-from-cheap-prose, her face literally was white, her makeup standing
out garish as a Pierrot. “Reenie, do you think Felicity is dying?” she said.
“She had flu and she was in the hospital. She’s better now. I think it’s the food. She can’t keep it down.”
“Can I send her something?”
“You could give Sam money and he could bring her something?” I promised to help ferry her to the front of the room so that
Felicity could at least get a glimpse of her aunt. Just before she turned away, Claire saw my mother. They had probably not
set eyes on each other for years. They waved at each other weakly.
All the players in my life were lined up in ways I would not ever have believed.