Page 92 of The Devil's Advocate

Not this time.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

EDDIE

We arrived at the courthouse before 8.30 a.m. There were no protestors outside. I guessed the boys with AR-15s and Confederate flags didn’t get up until past noon. Andy, Patricia, Harry and Kate filed into the courtroom to take their seats.

I waited outside in the hallway, hands in my pockets, walking the floor.

Korn was going to open the case to the jury, and I would then give a responding statement. I had made some rough notes the day before, but they weren’t good. I walked the empty hallway, up and down, my feet echoing on the stone floor tiles. Moving around sometimes helped me think.

It wasn’t working this morning.

I was relying on Bloch finding some missing diamonds. The security footage from the gas station was still in the wind, or so I hoped. Bloch didn’t dismiss the idea. She just nodded and said she would go and see if she could find it.

I didn’t ask where she was gonna look.

One thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to find anything in time to give me a decent point to make in my opening speech to the jury.

To get a conviction, Korn would need ten of the twelve jurors to bring in a guilty verdict. In New York, you need a unanimous verdict. I only ever needed one juror to be on my side, in my entire career. Now I needed two, and if I messed up, my client would die an excruciating death.

Normally, I have an idea. A theory in a case, which I can tell the jury about at the beginning of the trial. An opening statement shouldn’t contain an argument, just an indication of what the evidence will show the jury. I didn’t have a theory for this case yet. Not a full one. Not by a long shot. Strolling up and down outside the courtroom, I had very little I could tell the jury.

Someone else killed Skylar Edwards, but we didn’t know who.

Ignore the forensic evidence proving Andy’s skin was under the victim’s nails, and the corresponding scrape on his back. Ignore the eyewitness testimony that Skylar and Andy were arguing the night she disappeared. Ignore the confession Andy made to the sheriff, and the second confession to his cellmate.

That was a lot to ask a jury to ignore.

No way. It would be hard enough to make a dent in any of this evidence even with an open-minded and impartial jury.

I needed something else. Something big to shake the twelve souls on that jury stand.

While I’d been walking back and forth, a steady crowd had beaten its way into the courtroom behind me. Now it was quiet in the hallway. I checked my watch.

Almost time.

The case was giving me nothing.

I decided the best thing to do was focus on something else instead of the damning evidence against Andy.

I was going to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre.

Sometimes the best way to deal with incriminating evidence is not to deal with it at all.

With the jury settled in their seats, and the crowded gallery behind us quieting down, Korn stood to make his opening statement. The defense table was crowded, but it needed to be. Harry and Kate flanked Andy. I sat beside Kate. Patricia was in the first row of the gallery, right behind Andy. She could just about lean over and touch him. Before this trial was through, he would need her hand on his shoulder.

Korn had risen slowly to his feet and waited while the chatter of the crowd fell from rippling whispers into a respectful silence.

It was a good performance. Commanding. This was his house. We were trespassers.

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, first I want to thank you for your service to this county, and to the family of Skylar Edwards. Look, there, in the front row behind my assistant district attorney, Mr. Wingfield,’ he said, sweeping his hand toward the seats behind the prosecution table, in the gallery. A man in his fifties with red hair and a puffy face already wet with tears. Francis Edwards. There were no spare seats in the courtroom, apart from the front row behind the defense table, where Patricia sat. And in one other spot. There was an empty space beside Francis.

‘Skylar Edwards was brutally murdered by the defendant, Mr. Dubois. Her boyfriend was going to propose to her the night she was killed. Instead, she was cruelly taken from her loved ones by the defendant, Andy Dubois. Skylar’s father, Francis, is here to watch justice served on the man who beat and strangled his daughter to death, and then buried her body. Nothing that happens in this courtroom can assuage his grief. He will carry it with him for the rest of the rest of his life. You will notice Skylar’s mother is not here. She could not bear the loss of her child, and sadly took her own life not twenty-four hours ago.’

Some of the jurors nodded. They must’ve heard already. This is a small town after all. Others let out an audible gasp.

‘Francis is here today for his wife, and his daughter. You, the jury, can give him the dignity and nobility to carry this grief by convicting Andy Dubois of Skylar’s murder. That’s justice. It’s a shield to help families bear their burden. That shield is not in my gift to give him. I can’t give Francis justice. Trust me, I would do anything to give him one moment’s peace. But I cannot. I do not hold that power.’