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“Are you okay? Do you want to get some air?” he whispers, leaning towards me.
I shake my head vigorously. I’ll be fine. I have to stop being weak.
“Did you kill your wife? How do you explain the knife that caused her death? Lodged in her chest?”
Mikael shakes his head to deny it, but it’s the words that matter. “Don’t call her my ‘wife!’” he yells as he stands up.
He’s getting angry, now, and that’s not a good sign.
“If she was in front of me today, I would make her suffer. I would rape her without any doubt, I would destroy her slowly. I would break her just as she broke me.”
“Calm down,” the judge orders him with an impassive air.
This is not the answer his lawyer was expecting, and she was about to swear. The trial is not going as well as it should.
Did he mean it? I didn’t think he would but maybe I was wrong?
“Helena Larey was seeing a psychologist,” the woman continues, turning to the jury. “She had behavioral problems. My client’s neighbors—who will also be called to testify—witnessed this woman raise her hand to her daughter several times.”
This reinforces even more what I thought. The lawyer walks slowly toward the jury, her hands intertwined.
“My client is described by everyone close to him as a loving father. A good man. We found no trace of his DNA on his daughter’s body, no fluids belonging to him. Only his fingerprints on the object that was used to rape her because he grabbed it when he discovered the scene, not knowing what it was used for. There were no prints belonging to him on the weapon that killed his wife.
She walks up to her client again, looking serious. She tries to lighten the mood, but it isn’t working.
“Did you abuse your daughter?” she asks again.
Tucker tenses up next to me. His face shows no expression, but I know his brain is racing.
“I would never do such a thing,” Mikael says between his pursed lips.
Many must see the madness in his face. Deep inside me…I see the truth.
The jury is attentive to every piece of information given. The lawyer stands in front of them again, trying to catch the eyes of each of them.
“Mikael Larey is not a criminal. He’s a man whose life has taken everything from him. His wife shattered his future with a snap of her fingers. I appeal to your common sense, to your humanity. Should an innocent man pay for crimes he did not commit?”
The following minutes are more and more intense. The cage closes little by little. And the more I hear from neighbors and colleagues, the more I am convinced: Mikael is innocent. After a while—I don’t know exactly how long the testimonies lasted—the twelve members of the jury leave to deliberate.
“He didn’t kill them,” I tell Tucker. “Please, Goddamn it, tell me they’re going to see that.”
He doesn’t say anything to me, but I know deep down he doesn’t entirely agree with me.
***
“On the charges of first-degree murder and rape of Meredith Larey, the jury finds Mikael Larey…”
Please, please…I bite my thumbnail inwardly praying.
“Guilty.”
I sit there in shock. Tucker gets up beside me.
“On the charge of first-degree murder against Helena Larey, the jury finds Mikael Larey…”
“Guilty,” says the jury spokesman.
My heart misses a beat. My hands are sweaty. I lean forward with tears in my eyes. This can’t be true. It can’t be true! I am positive that he did not kill them! That he didn’t rape anyone!
