On the whole, the first day went well, and so did the first week. Despite the heinousness of the crimes, there was little emotional testimony in the case. It was all very technical. There were no eyewitnesses, the parents had no testimony to give.
The most emotional factor in the courtroom was the enormous section of seats cordoned off for the relatives of the victims. There were a hundred and nine people in those seats, watching the proceedings intently and many of them crying. Instinctively, the jury knew who they were and looked at them often. Alexa had referred to them once, so they’d know, and Judy had objected. But by then the jury knew, and it was too late. Charlie sat among them with his family, who had come to see justice done.
Mostly the case involved the presentation of technical forensic data that systematically linked Luke Quentin to each victim and her death. Cross-examination involved refuting that evidence, and the public defender didn’t have the skills or evidence to do it. It was a hard case to beat. Alexa and Sam met with Judy on Friday afternoon after court was recessed for the weekend.
“I just wanted to suggest to you again,” Alexa said calmly, “that you get your client to plead. We’re all wasting our time here.”
“I don’t think we are,” Judy Dunning said stubbornly. “People make mistakes in DNA tests. Sometimes all they do is exclude one group of people without accurately pinpointing others. I think the cops in every state pinned every unsolved murder they had on Luke. If there was one mistake made, just one, if one of those cases was wrong, or poorly handled, it will raise a reasonable doubt that could overturn all the others.” It was a long shot, but the only one she had. And investigation teams in nine states and the FBI had seen to it that there were no mistakes. Alexa thought she was being foolish and committing legal suicide for her client in open court. “He has nothing to lose and he has a right to a trial,” Judy said darkly, as though she were watching an innocent man be crucified, instead of a merciless killer being brought to justice. She still believed in her client’s innocence, that much was clear. She wasn’t just doing a job, she was leading a crusade, for a lost cause. Judy seemed painfully naïve to Alexa.
“He has a lot to lose,” Alexa pointed out to her. “The judge is going to be much tougher on him if he wastes everyone’s time. No one is going to be sympathetic to him, or give him a break. He’d be a lot better off if he strikes a deal now, before we go through weeks of trial. The judge is going to get pissed,” Alexa warned her, and Jack agreed with her completely, and felt that a good attorney would have forced Luke to plead. Judy was too weak to do it, and too enthralled by Luke. “If I were his attorney,” Alexa said quietly, “I would make him plead.” The judge might give him concurrent sentences instead of consecutive, which could extend far beyond Luke’s lifetime. Concurrent sentencing was the best he could hope for.
“Then he’s lucky you aren’t his attorney,” Judy said firmly and stood up, looking huffy. “I’m his lawyer, counselor, and he’s not pleading.” Alexa nodded, thanked her, and she and Jack left the room without comment.
“See you Monday,” she said as she left him in the hall.
Four policemen helped her down the courthouse steps into a waiting police car, and two stood outside her apartment all weekend. They were back in court on Monday.
The technical testimony went on for three weeks, and was impressively conclusive, beyond a reasonable doubt, Alexa thought. Again it was less emotional than she would have liked. And the photographs of the victims were absolutely awful, because most of them had been found later and the bodies had been badly decomposed. The jury had been warned that they would have to view them. They looked sick when they did, but the photographs were evidence in the trial, and part of the State’s case.
After three weeks of testimony, the prosecution rested and turned the case over to the defense. Alexa had produced volumes of expert testimony and DNA testing that couldn’t be refuted. All Judy could do was try to confuse it, which she attempted, without much success. And the most damning element in her case was that Luke wasn’t going to take the stand in his own defense, because of his previous convictions and criminal record. He could have, but it would have been foolish in the extreme. Even Judy wouldn’t risk it, so he said nothing in his own defense, which spoke volumes. Instead he sat in the courtroom for three weeks looking arrogant and without remorse, as the victims’ families cried.
The case for the defense took less than a week, and then the public defender rested her case. Alexa called only two defense witnesses for rebuttal and made hash of them. They were incompetent, and it showed. And then Judy made an emotional closing statement, begging the jury not to convict an innocent man, and hoping that she had convinced them he was. The jury looked stone-faced as they watched her.
Alexa’s closing argument summed up the evidence for them, reminded them of each case and instance when Luke Quentin had been linked conclusively to one of the women, as their murderer. She went down the list of proofs, both simple and complicated, that should convince them that the defendant was guilty of all of these crimes. She then made a brief emotional speech reminding them of their responsibility as jurors to bring criminals like Luke Quentin to justice and convict, not an innocent man, but a man who had been proven to have raped and killed eighteen women. She thanked them for their attention during the long trial.
The judge then instructed the jury for their deliberations. The foreman had already requested charts and evidence that had been presented during the trial. Throughout the trial the judge had warned the jury that they were not to read anything in the press about the proceedings, but he had not sequestered them.
They would be taken to a hotel that night, however, if they had not reached a verdict, and for as many nights as it took. The jury left the courtroom, and Alexa let out a long sigh. Her job was done. Sam and Jack looked at her with admiration.
“You did a hell of a job,” Sam said, somewhat in awe of her strength and precision. Watching Alexa in court was like watching ballet. She had an amazing way of making complicated information sound simple and reasonable to the jury, as she questioned witnesses and asked them to explain in simple terms what they’d said before. It was a very clever way of not confusing a jury with overly technical details.
As she stood up, Luke Quentin was led away in handcuffs by the four deputies who had been with him throughout the trial. He looked at her in open hatred this time. He knew too that it hadn’t gone well. He said nothing to Alexa and moved on, but if he could have murdered her with a look, she would have been dead on the spot. She was more than ever grateful that she had sent Savannah away. Until he was behind bars in a maximum security prison for life, she didn’t feel safe.
Sam, Jack, and Alexa had to stay near the courtroom but not in it while they waited for the jury to deliberate. They were all available on their cell phones, and decided to go back to Alexa’s office. It was hard to believe it was almost over. Alexa hoped they’d convict, and it was difficult to imagine they wouldn’t. But juries were unpredictable and quixotic. If they had a “reasonable doubt,” even if they had been too confused to assimilate the information, he’d go free. They had all seen it happen.
Sam sprawled out on the couch in Alexa’s office, while Jack relaxed in a chair, and Alexa sat down with her feet on the desk. She was excited, but exhausted, and had been running on adrenaline and fumes for almost five weeks, since jury selection. It was the first of June. Savannah was graduating in Charleston in ten days. Life would be normal again by then. The DA had promised her a week’s vacation as soon as the verdict came in. He stuck his head into her office as she sat there and said he had seen her closing argument and it had been excellent. He had been in the courtroom frequently during the trial, as had several senior members of the FBI.