Page 91 of Fifty-Fifty

Stone flicked his index finger to Dreyer, and one of his assistant prosecutors killed the projector, returning the screen to a blank canvas. The relief on some of the jurors’ faces was welcome. Kate wanted to get up into position to address the jury quickly, and make sure it was her who gave them that relief from the nightmare on screen.

Dreyer wanted that image burned into each juror’s retina, but he’d left it up there too long and Kate had swung it to her advantage. That was her play. Take

everything Dreyer threw at her and either bat it out of the park or hit it straight at Eddie’s client.

‘Members of the jury, my name is Kate Brooks. I have the honor of representing Alexandra Avellino.’

Kate paused, and looked at Alexandra. The image had reduced her client to tears. Alexandra sat with her head up and tears lining her face. She dabbed at them with a handkerchief. Kate said nothing for a time. She wanted the jury to

see her client’s grief. Drink it in, just as much as they had bathed in the prosecution’s hellish photograph.

‘You will hear a lot of evidence in this case which is circumstantial. My client was at home when her father was murdered. She called the police in a panic when she discovered the body, and hid in the bathroom fearful that her sister would kill her too. All of these circumstances I don’t have to prove. They’re in black and white in the 911 phone call she made to the police. Before she made the call, she tried to save her father, having discovered him bloodied and torn apart, lying on his bed. Alexandra is not evil. She is a victim here.’

She paused, looked around the jury and saw some of them nodding. This was going better than she had expected. She had to finish it now, get out on a high.

‘Alexandra has had an upbringing stained by the loss of loved ones. Losing her mother, and then her stepmother in tragic circumstances. Now that her father is gone, my client believes she no longer has family left. Her sister is no longer family. Her sister took everything from Alexandra. There is one killer in this room, ladies and gentlemen. And it’s the person with a history of complex psychiatric conditions, with a documented history of using knives, of self-harm, of addiction and criminality. The killer is on trial. The killer is Sofia Avellino, and you have a duty to my client as a victim to acquit her, and send her sister somewhere she can never harm anyone else again.’

Kate paused again, and noted the smiles and the nods and the attention the jury had given her. It was all about rapport, and she was off to a great start.

She glanced at Bloch and saw her friend sitting with bold admiration on her face. Kate made her way back to her seat.

Bloch leaned over and said, ‘You’re amazing.’

Alexandra whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and gave Kate a tearful hug.

The jury watched every moment, and then turned toward Sofia, and Eddie Flynn, with something like contempt in their eyes.

THIRTY

EDDIE

I’d never stood up to give my opening speech to a jury so hostile.

They weren’t looking at me, they were focused on Sofia. She looked like a rabbit in the middle of the road, with headlamps coming toward it. Frozen and shivering, waiting to be run over flat.

I told her it was okay, and Harry patted her hands. She had both hands spread out on the table, one on top of the other. Her fingers were shaking. Harry steadied them, but really he was using his palm to cover them. Sofia’s anxiety could translate as fear. The fear of someone who has done something terrible and has just been found out.

I didn’t stand in the well of the court. Kate had done such a number on us, and the jury had clearly liked her, that I didn’t want any comparisons in the jury’s mind. Instead I walked right up to the jury and stopped only a few feet from the first row. I put my hands in my pockets and I thought about what I was going to say.

I had a speech prepared, but now it sounded flat in my head. I couldn’t use it. I had to come up with something new. Kate was riding on Dreyer’s coat-tails.

Every point Dreyer made in the case, Kate was going to deflect it onto Sofia.

There were no easy plays. The jury was being told a story in this case. And right now they liked the one they were hearing.

My story had to be different. It had to be better.

Whoever tells the best story wins.

I cleared my throat, and took my time to make eye contact with some jurors.

The jurors that I had selected in the last few days. Seven women. Five men. One male alternate, one female. Most of the women on the jury were at least ten years’ older than Sofia. All of them held jobs. A cleaner. A van driver. A chef. A hotel maid. A coffee shop manager. A retired teacher. The female juror who was

about a year or so younger than Sofia was a student at NYU. She at least held my gaze without defiance. This juror hadn’t made up her mind yet.

The men were a mix of laborer, telemarketer, web designer and two wannabe actors who both waited tables in chain restaurants while they waited for Mr.

Spielberg’s call.