Toward the end Barlow asked Roby how many couples he’d slept with. Maben objected, but the judge let the question through.
Roby didn’t remember, off the top of his head. Ten or twelve.
“Ten or twelve,” Barlow said. “You’re a busy man, Mr. Roby.”
“Objection.”
“Tell you what,” Roby said, “I ain’t never gonna do it again.”
As a strategy, attacking the witnesses’ character felt questionable to me. The attempt to steer everything back to Adam verged on desperate. But a little desperation was called for, as Maben built up to her big reveaclass="underline" the tape.
Tiffany Reuss texted me.
Olivia’s toast.
Absent that day, and every day, was Trevor Vogel. Maben had spent a lot of time pretrial prepping him, unsure if she’d end up calling him to the stand. The judge had disallowed as hearsay his statement to the cops, in which Trevor recounted Adam discussing multiple murders. No big deal, as the video stood on its own; Maben didn’t need to prove its provenance. The main rationale would be to beat down Barlow’s smear campaign on Adam. But that upside was minor and had to be weighed against the risk of putting Trevor, in all his instability, on display.
In the end it hadn’t mattered. One month before opening statements, Trevor Vogel overdosed fatally on fentanyl in a Union City motel room. Items cataloged on his person by the Alameda County coroner included coins and a phone charger. No gold watch.
Once the prosecution rested, I stopped coming to court. I had a pretty good sense of what Barlow would say: Adam Valois, top to bottom.
Adam, corresponding with Linus Hao and arranging the meet-up.
Adam, accessing the boat. Acquiring the dope and the handcuffs.
His camera, his studio lights, his staging.
That video? Don’t be fooled. Adam had groomed Olivia. Coerced her to violence by threatening violence against her. Look how he sat on the bed, watching. All he needed was some popcorn.
This was a woman broken psychologically by a coldhearted mastermind. Besides, the beating hadn’t killed Linus; the water had. And Adam, not Olivia, had thrown him in.
I wondered how much of it would filter back to the Valoises.
Regina reported that, after not seeing Rick around the biology building for some months, Ed had run into him in the hallway. When Ed stopped to say hello, Rick ignored him and walked on.
From another colleague Ed learned that Rick and Liz had left town indefinitely and were staying with friends in Italy.
I came for the verdict. The gallery was crowded, all the cops in attendance.
Regina wasn’t there. She and Ed were spending a long weekend in Carmel. I asked if she was finally going to respond to his proposal. She hung up on me.
Taking my customary seat in the last row, I noticed Adam’s sister Kirsten, two rows up. She’d brought her husband and was staring at the back of Olivia Parisi’s head. As if trying to will a wound.
The judge asked the forewoman if they had reached a verdict.
They had.
Agnes Hao gripped her mother’s arm.
Guilty, all counts.
Somewhere to my right, a hoarse voice rang out: “Yes.”
Judge Searle smacked her gavel and warned that she would not tolerate disruptions.
I texted Lisa Shupfer at her new Idaho phone number.
Sentencing was fixed for ten days out. Barlow announced that his client intended to appeal and would file written notice thereof.
As Olivia was being cuffed, she threw a vicious smile at the jury. She started to turn toward the Haos; the deputies restrained her and led her away.
Standing in the hallway, I shook hands with the cops.
Alan Mendes lingered a few feet behind, holding the arm of a woman in her late fifties. Wrinkled gingham dress, heavy dark hair overtaken by gray, dark good looks long wrung out of her. Mendes waited for the others to leave, then brought her forward and introduced her to me as Irene Kudelka, Denny’s mother.
She hugged me and thanked me for everything I’d done for her son. Her husband had wanted to come but couldn’t bring himself.
Hers was the voice that had cried out following the verdict.
I wished her the best of luck.
John Doe #57 remains unidentified to this day.
Acknowledgments
Noah Ben Aderet, Avi Klein (with apologies that I can run an ANI search so fast), Jesse Grant, Jessica Minkoff, Rachel Heitler, Jacob Heitler, Dr. Fedor Baart, Dr. Joshua Kayman, Jessica, Colleen, and Richard Fain, Ben Mantell, Abe Fine.
In memory of TZ.