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“Correct,” I say, my eyes closing involuntarily. Even so, memories cannot be erased at will. Not like other things. The image remains. Ellie’s little mouth open, formed in the perfect shape of an O. Two female officers forcing her from my arms, carrying her away from me, ushering her toward a waiting SUV. I could see her lips moving, but my ears failed to register the sound. I was fighting, instinctively. I was trying to get to her, but it was pointless. Three officers had me pinned. “Mr. Hastings, you are under arrest for the murder of...”
I was aware of the Miranda warning being read. But my mind was somewhere far off. Meanwhile, my daughter screamed my name.
That’s how it happened. How in one day, on a random Tuesday evening, in the dead of summer, life came screeching to a halt. Never to return to the way it was before. And how could it? The events had already been set into motion. Events that had began months—perhaps even years—earlier. They all added up to that one moment.
The minutes and the hours that followed were a blur. My face was plastered all over the news. All over social media. Word spread fast. Given the witch hunt that had taken place, I knew bail would be denied. The notion of being innocent until proven guilty is a platitude that has no bearing once you’ve been accused.
In the hours I spent in that interrogation room, I came to understand with precise clarity, in a way I hadn’t before, that any time a crime is committed—particularly a violent crime against a woman—people want justice. The authorities want to ease the fear of the general public. A quick resolution is demanded from the top down. Politics are involved. Heads will roll. Asses are on the line. This doesn’t always lead to the best outcome for those close to the deceased. Fingers are pointed. Accusations are made. Proof becomes easy to come by.
Suffice it to say, there’s no going back. Even if I’m found innocent—which I probably won’t be—there’s no way to undo what’s been done. This wasn’t simply a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was in it. Deeply involved. They say love is blind, but desire has blind spots too.
Life as I knew it is over. No matter the outcome of the trial, there will always be a cloud of suspicion hanging over my head. Things can never be truly erased from your record. Or for that matter, from a person’s mind.
I took that for granted before. Innocence. Anonymity. Freedom.
You don’t know what you don’t know. Innocence, once lost, can never be regained, and accusations always leave a scar.
I suppose it’s hard to appreciate those things. That’s what I think about now, most of all. The things taken from me. The ones I can’t get back. There’s finality that only death can bring.
Although, not all has been lost. At least, not yet. It’s important, for one reason—and her name is Eleanor—to hold out hope. There’s still a chance, however small, that the trial could swing in my favor. It’s a long shot. But it’s all I’ve got. Which means I have to think like a prosecutor, and a juror—and a killer.
It seems ironic. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
I used to believe that a man with experience was not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. Now, I know how wrong that kind of thinking can be.
It’s half of the reason I don’t sleep much these days. It’s a scary thing—not so conducive to rest—to put your fate in the hands of twelve of your peers. Peers, of course, being a loose term. I doubt many that serve on any given jury have an IQ tha
t ranges in my vicinity. To serve on a jury, you have to have what? Time.
What do most intelligent people do with their time? Just an educated guess, but probably not volunteer for less than minimum wage. No. They find a way to get out of it. I speak from experience.
You see, thinking, in its simplest form, looks like this: Data-Analysis-Decision-Action.
Notice the end: action. If thinking doesn’t end with action, it’s useless. Taking action is why we think. Thinking just to think is pointless. That’s called daydreaming. Back up one step: decision. We’re thinking so that we can decide on a range of options. Simple. Take another step back: analysis. We’re sifting through the information needed to make a decision. We’re judging the credibility of the information, its reliability. Its usefulness for the decision. And we’re combining the new data with what we already know, based on past experiences and our worldview.
Then we’re at the beginning: data. We’re collecting data. We’re gathering what we think will be useful down the line. The information we need to analyze. To decide. To take action. That’s the chain of thinking: D-A-D-A. Gathering data leads to analysis. Analysis leads to a decision. A decision leads to an action. Simple. That’s how thinking works.
That’s precisely how whether I live or die will be determined. The jury could give me life, and that’s what they’ll take—all of it that counts, anyway. Or they could sentence me to death. It won’t come quick, so I’m not sure the second option is any different than the first.
The third and least likely option is that I could walk.
If I want to see my daughter again, properly that is— untethered, unrestrained, unwatched—I have to aim for a not-guilty verdict. Which means I must not only understand the narrative, but I have to manipulate it better than the opposing side.
I have to create doubt in their minds. Not just a little—a whole lot.
Chapter Eight
Laurel Dunaway
Journal Entry
When you’re in sales, you see a lot of strategies. You see big strategies. Small strategies. Worldwide strategies. Strategies across space and time. Then you zoom in, to one market. To one organization. Where intentions collide. Where resources matter. Where histories matter.
Then you zoom in on an individual. A person. Someone with dreams. And fears. And anger. And love. Someone building a strategy to satisfy them all. When you’re in sales, you witness a lot of strategies, because that’s your job. It’s your job to pay attention to big strategies. Small strategies. Regional strategies. National strategies. Most of all, individual strategies.
It’s your job to see them and to understand them, because that’s how you know when threats to your success exist. To identify threats, you’re infiltrating an organization, a person. You’re figuring out who is making decisions, and who isn’t. You’re collecting intelligence on what they know. And what they don’t know. You’re figuring out their plans. Whether they can help you. Whether they can’t. Whether they’re a threat. Whether they’re going to sink your ship and destroy your plans. Hopefully, you figure that out before it happens. You’re uncovering their strategy. You’re furthering your own. That’s the job of a good salesperson.
Most strategies fail because they don’t follow the First Rule of Strategy: look forward and reason backward.
