“Okay.”
“Good. Now, you know what I’ve been doing for the past five years. I think it’s only fair that you bring me up to date on how you spent your time while I’ve been asleep.”
Jerry had to work late, so Ashley agreed to meet him at Typhoon, a Thai restaurant on Broadway a few blocks from his office. The hostess showed Ashley to a table in the crowded restaurant where Jerry was waiting.
“How did the meeting with Casey go?” Jerry asked as soon as she was seated.
“Better than I thought it would.”
“You shouldn’t be surprised. You liked Casey when you were at the Academy, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I only saw her a few times. Except for when she took Mom and me around, I never did more than say hi when we passed on campus. It was real superficial. And when I was at the Academy I didn’t know that she abandoned me and I hadn’t heard all of these bad things about her.”
“Bad like what?”
“You told me how wild she was when she met Dad. Miles said pretty much the same thing. She’s been in rehab. She was promiscuous. If you can believe Randy Coleman, she could also be violent and sadistic.”
Ashley related what Coleman had said about Casey chaining him to their bed and burning him with cigarettes. Jerry was appalled.
“But being in the coma and coming out of it, maybe that changed her,” Ashley said. “This afternoon we really clicked. I want to get to know her better.”
Jerry reached out and took Ashley’s hands. “This is good, Ashley. This can really help you. With Maxfield in prison and finding out that you get along with Casey, you can have a new start. You can get your life back.”
“You left something out.”
“What?”
Ashley squeezed Jerry’s hands. “You, Jerry. If anyone has saved me, it’s you.”
Book Tour
Did Ashley and your sister become friends?” a young woman in the back row asked Miles Van Meter.
“Yes, Ashley started visiting Glen Oaks regularly. When Casey was able to walk, Ashley would keep her company on the trails at the Academy. They’re still good friends.”
A hand went up in the second row. Miles smiled at a middle-aged woman in a business suit.
“Sleeping Beauty reads like a murder mystery,” she said. “Have you ever tried your hand at fiction?”
“I took a creative writing course in college. I did rather well in it. And, of course, there are all those lawyers who are writing legal thrillers. When that trend started I thought about trying my hand at one, but I practice business law and my cases were too dull for a good plot.”
“Are you going to write another true crime book?”
“No. Writing about my sister’s case was enough for me.”
“What about a novel?”
Miles smiled shyly. “Well, I do have an idea for a thriller. I’m working up a proposal. If my agent thinks it’s any good I’ll probably take a stab at it.”
A heavyset man in the front row raised his hand and Miles acknowledged him.
“Whose idea was it to write a new edition of Sleeping Beauty?”
“Actually, my editor got the idea after Maxfield’s arrest. He asked me if I had any interest in writing additional chapters that would include the trial for a new edition of the book. I agreed. I thought that the book needed these final chapters to bring the events in it to an end. It also gave me closure.”
A woman who was standing between the bookcases in the back of the room raised her hand. Miles pointed at her.
“Has your sister read Sleeping Beauty and, if she has, what does she think of it?”
“Casey has read it. I think it was tough for her, but she’s one tough lady.”
The audience applauded.
“To answer the second part of your question, Casey said she liked it, but I don’t think she’d be honest with me if she hated it. After all, we love each other. That, by the way, is one reason to never ask your mother to critique your work.”
Miles waited for the laughter to die down before calling on a scholarly-looking gentleman with gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses who was wearing a tweed sports coat with leather patches on the sleeves.
“Was it hard for you to sit through Joshua Maxfield’s trial?”
“Yes and no. I didn’t like to hear about the terrible things he’d done, but I felt great relief that he was finally facing justice. I think it was much harder for Ashley.”
Part Three.State V. Joshua Maxfield
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The bailiff rapped his gavel to start the fourth day of Joshua Maxfield’s trial. Delilah Wallace smiled in anticipation of the day’s events. She was delighted with the jury that had been empaneled during the first two days. They were a group of tough, no-nonsense people. She was certain that they would see through any defense tricks and have no qualms about finding death to be the appropriate sentence after they convicted the defendant of aggravated murder.
Delilah was also pleased with the way opening statements had gone. Hers had been detailed and impassioned. She had laid out the evidence the jury would hear in chronologic order and had named the witnesses who would establish each piece of evidence. By the time she was through with her presentation she noticed more than one juror nodding unconsciously when she made a point. They also smiled when she brought a little levity to the proceedings. It was easy for Delilah to make friends, and she felt that she had twelve new ones by the time she sat down.
In Delilah’s opinion, Eric Swoboda’s opening statement had been boring and uninformative. He had talked about the concept of reasonable doubt but he had not mentioned a single reason why the jury was going to have one when the trial was over. He had been vague about how the defense would counter the state’s arguments. He had talked theory but had presented no facts. Delilah knew why. The defense had no arguments to counter hers. It had no evidence that would create any kind of doubt, much less a reasonable doubt. Joshua Maxfield was guilty, guilty, guilty, and Delilah was satisfied that she had the means to bring him to justice.
The Honorable Andrew Shimazu had been assigned to hear Joshua Maxfield’s case. Shimazu was a short, chubby, congenial Japanese-American with a full head of straight, black hair. After graduating from the University of Hawaii with an engineering degree, Shimazu had attended the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College in Portland and stayed on. After he spent several years with a large firm and two terms in the state legislature, the governor had appointed him to the Multnomah County Circuit Court. This was his sixth year on the bench. His intelligence and judicial temperament had made him one of the most popular judges in the courthouse.
“Call your first witness, Miss Wallace,” Judge Shimazu ordered.
Delilah had decided to begin her case with her most appealing and deadliest witness. The prosecutor wanted the jury to be convinced of Maxfield’s guilt from the get-go. Once they had formed their opinion, it would be very difficult for Eric Swoboda to change it.
“The State calls Ashley Spencer,” Delilah said.
As Ashley walked down the aisle to the witness box she remembered how terrified she had been when she testified at Joshua Maxfield’s preliminary hearing. Today, she was focused and angry. When she passed the defense table, Ashley glared at Maxfield. She noticed with great satisfaction that he could not meet her steady gaze. Ashley looked away and walked to the front of the witness box where she stood with her head held high as the bailiff administered the oath.
Ashley took her seat and waited for Delilah Wallace to begin her direct examination. Jerry was seated behind the prosecutor in the first row of the spectator section. He flashed her a smile of encouragement when their eyes met. Ashley knew better than to smile back. Delilah had instructed her to be serious from the moment she took the stand to the moment she finished testifying.