Chapter 12 Peregrine Falcon #3
illness or some other illness. Especially for an older person, for a man, who was not affected by drugs or alcohol, this would
be very unusual behavior.”
“But you don’t know, really, if Emil Gardener was inebriated or had used drugs. That is, with respect, one of the many things you don’t know, even after an autopsy. He could have been drunk. He could have used drugs, correct?”
Dr. McDermott sighed again, gustily. “According to his family, Mr. Gardener was an abstainer. He never drank alcohol. He never
had. He never used drugs. He never had. His daily prescription medication, a diuretic, a statin, an aspirin, that was all
he used. He smoked a cigar once a year at Christmas.”
“He could have been a secret smoker, though,” Sam said. “He could have been a secret drinker.”
“There was no evidence of that, in his lungs or his liver. Not at all.”
The prosecution called Karen White, the first detective to interview Felicity. Israel Ronson played a portion of the videotaped
interview. While not in tears, Felicity was visibly upset, removing her glasses to press her splayed fingers against her eyes,
asking repeatedly for water. When the detective asked if Felicity wanted a lawyer present, and if she had one in mind, she
said, “Why? I’m not a suspect, am I?”
“You haven’t been charged with anything, Felicity.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“This is just an informational interview. I’m just offering you the option of having someone here to look after your interests.”
“Are you going to charge me with something?” Felicity said. “I know how this must look but really, I don’t know how any of
this happened.”
She admitted to knowing both men and to asking for help from Cary Church to move Emil Gardener’s body.
As I watched, I could see Felicity’s cloudless composure return, like that cloak of feathers she told me about so long ago that protected the goddess Freya from her enemies.
Her voice no longer faltered. She answered each question clearly and concisely.
After a while, she asked to make a phone call.
Not long afterward, Sam showed up in the room.
How had she chosen Sam’s firm? Was it because of her former boss, Jack Melodia? How would she have known about their connection,
for she had no reason to know it? It was only because Felicity had a business card that had been tacked to a corkboard in
the dressing room at Ophelia. She had not expected to ever need it, and had, until that moment, forgotten about it. She met
Sam, and I met Sam, by mere chance, or perhaps kismet. Much later, when I saw some of her things laid out on a tabletop, I
would notice how she had neatly laminated the card with a layer of clear tape. A long time afterward, Angela Damiano would
say of this happenstance that the stars had aligned, and then hastily point out that she didn’t believe in fate, astrology,
or any of that claptrap—and that she believed only in saints, especially St. Catherine, not necessarily in God.
When the video clip ended, Sam called Marta Vincent, the older woman who’d known Felicity for so many years—who had, in fact,
babysat for her when Felicity was a little child, even before I knew her. What was there to say? That she was cute and bright
and polite? That she loved animals? That it was impossible to imagine this gentle girl growing up to harm anyone? The same
could be said of most people. When his turn came, Israel Ronson seemed intent almost on reproving her. “You knew Felicity
Wild as a child,” he said.
“Yes, very well. I knew her family.”
“But you did not know her as a grown woman?”
“No. I knew her mother. I saw Ruth occasionally.”
“Well, you couldn’t imagine Felicity ever growing up to hurt anyone. Could you have imagined the girl you knew growing up
to become a stripper? Or a sex worker?”
“Of course not!” said the witness. “That would be impossible.”
“And yet,” said the prosecutor, as if wiping steam from a mirror so that it would be possible to see the clearest reflection, “that is exactly what Felicity grew up to be. There’s no contesting that.
So, you cannot say for certain that she wouldn’t also grow up to be someone capable of doing someone harm, isn’t that true? ”
Sam shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair, at first seeming about to speak but nearly visibly hauling that
impulse down, like a kite by the tail.
“I guess I can’t say for sure,” Marta Vincent admitted.
The same scenario was set forth with Felicity’s faculty adviser, but what could it possibly signify? Murder was a predictable
destiny for no ordinary middle-class citizen. I supposed that it must be said, but to what end? It was not going to convert
anyone. Something had provoked a change in Felicity. I thought back to my friend Ross’s explanation of why people changed
for the worse.
This was a trial that was serious, Angela Damiano would later say, but not complicated. There were not very many moving parts.
I thought of it like removing an appendix, which could either be a relatively quick and effective operation or a mortal shit
show. Both lawyers were excellent and prepared. The witnesses gave witness. All they could do was all they could do. As the
final day approached, no one could call it.
Sally Zankow said, “This jury is going to have a lot to talk about. Get your popcorn. Prepare to camp out, folks.”
Sam’s final words with them helped me see why people in previous generations called a lawyer a “pleader.” He wasn’t simply
practicing the lawyer’s art; he was truly begging the jury.
“Now you know what I know about these circumstances, and maybe you know everything that anyone knows—except the killer of course. What you have heard over the course of this trial are two possible scenarios. One didn’t happen.
One did. What did happen was that a young woman who was desperate found the dead body of a man who had been her client, perhaps her friend, and she panicked.
She thought she would be blamed. Maybe someone wanted her to be blamed.
If Felicity would or could answer these questions, we would all have an easier time.
What does it suggest to you, that she will not answer those questions?
It suggests to me that she is either in peril for her own life or covering up for someone else.
It is frustrating. It is maddening. But is it the same as being guilty of first-degree intentional homicide? It is not.
“Ladies and gentlemen, do you have the proof you need to find Felicity Wild guilty of murder? You know the answer. Should
she go to prison for two life terms based on what you have heard? You know the answer to that question. Please. Listen to
your conscience. Find the defendant, Felicity Claire Copeland Wild, innocent.”
The next morning, looking like a much older man, a man who moved slower, like a man whose sleep had been scarce and shallow,
Israel Ronson rose from his chair. “Here we are. No matter how this case ends, and I think I know how it will end, you will
never forget this event.” The jurors would experience happy times, sad times, achievements, and losses. Nothing they did in
the future, however, would ever be more important.
“Sam is fighting for Felicity Wild’s freedom. I am fighting for justice for two good men she killed. I must be their voice.
You must be their advocates. Their deaths cannot go unpunished. If Wild finds herself here today, it is because she put herself
here. The conditions for her arrest were met fairly. The allegations were proven. She had a fair trial.
“All kinds of things have been said to confuse you. Yes, of course the families of Mr. Church and Mr. Gardener also benefited financially from their deaths. Do you believe that these men’s family members killed them?
Or is this just another made-up obstacle?
” Errors occurred, Ronson said. People are not always perfect.
These things matter but do not change the truth.
“We know why,” he said. “We know when. We know who.
“There is a single question. Did Felicity Wild kill Cary Church and Emil Gardener? There is a single right answer. Yes, she
did. She took their lives and now you must take her freedom. I, too, would rather Miss Wild go free than to make a terrible
mistake. But in this case, the grave and terrible mistake would be to let her go free. That mistake would haunt you for the
rest of your life.
“She did this. She was caught. She must pay. We ask you to be brave and return a verdict of guilty.”
The judge gave her instructions. The jury filed out. All of us filed out too. I felt the way you feel when you exit a movie
theater and it’s still daylight and there is a sort of guilty urgency about time whiled away that could have been better spent.
My mother wanted a nap. She wanted to call home and talk to my father, a reminder that not all the world was bleak and inexpertly
balanced. Claire said she’d go to her bed-and-breakfast and do some reading, and they would meet later for a meal.
I couldn’t sit still. I decided to drive to a place Felicity once told me about, to the Wisconsin River below the hydroelectric
dam in Prairie du Sac, where eagles dipped and soared.
Not long before we broke up, I’d asked Sam, if Felicity didn’t do it, who did? I remembered the conversation now, reliving,
possibly because of the poignant pain of it, how interesting it had been just to talk to Sam.
He and his mother had talked about this often. She thought perhaps it was Ruth, a born-again Christian who lost her marbles
and did this to free Felicity from sin. At the time, I’d scoffed. If Sam had ever met Ruth, he’d have known that nothing could
have been further from the truth.