Chapter 1

George

 

“Mrs. Devine.”

George Alberts cleared his throat.

“Mrs. Devine.”

The tall, slender woman did not move or even blink when he spoke. She simply sat as she had for the past five minutes with her back straight and her hands in her lap staring hard out the open second-floor window. But George could see that her knuckles were even whiter than her already-chalky skin and that her hands were clenched together. He watched as her dark eyes filled with water and began to overflow, sending tears down her cheeks. Despite his best efforts, George was losing her to her memories. He could not let this happen. He had spent two hours deposing her and they hadn’t even gotten to the rape yet.

“Mrs. Devine. I know this is difficult, but we must continue. This is very important,” George said.

 He bent down on one knee with his hand on her armrest and looked into her face in hopes of getting her attention. He saw that she was trying. As he rose, she blinked and looked his way, not bothering to wipe her tears. Not aware of them, it seemed. Part of him was ashamed that he had to put her through this. But this was a murder trial after all and her story could prove that the victim was no victim. The victim was a rapist. Worse, he was a child rapist.

 “How about some water? Would you like a glass of water?”

            He motioned to his clerk, who slipped out of the office and down the narrow hallway toward the bathroom. Then George retreated to his desk, giving Ella Devine space to breathe and to collect herself. George would need her tears in the courtroom, but not right now. Right now, he had to finish this statement. He had to know exactly what he was dealing with here, just how much sympathy her story could elicit from a jury of 12 men so many years after the rape had occurred. He needed to recreate that picture of a 9-year-old girl lying there, unable to move with her chest aching in terror, her lips blue with fear and her body shaking uncontrollably, barely able to whisper as she called for her mother. It was that picture he had to plant in their minds, a picture horrible enough to make three generally peaceful men violently ill. Ill enough to commit murder and ill enough to be forgiven.

            Ethan, his clerk, returned with the water. George gave it to Ella Devine who took the glass with both shaking hands and brought it to her lips. She did not brush away the deep brunette curls that had fallen into her face. Her tears had slowed and some had dried, leaving salty streaks on her skin. As she drank, her breathing grew steady and a slight touch of color emerged in her cheeks.

She was different, this woman—far different from other women of her wealth and status. She was only 28 years old and the wife of Dr. Devine. Yet she had not cut her hair into a bob. She did not wear dresses that showed her knees when she crossed her legs, like so many other women her age. She did not wear long, beaded necklaces or tiny, decorative hats of any sort. Rather, George noticed, Ella Devine covered every inch of her long body. Her sleeves concealed her wrists, her collar was tight around her neck and her dress reached her ankles. Her small, delicate face, never powdered or made up, had the perfect paleness of a woman who spent most of her time indoors, rarely seeing the sun. Still, somehow, she was beautiful.

            “I’m sorry,” Ella said, staring into her glass. “I’m sorry.”

            “It’s okay.” George said. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, more out of habit than need. His hair had disappeared years ago from everywhere but the sides of his head and cool spring air moved in from his office window with the help of a fan. “Just get your thoughts together and we’ll start again. Let’s go back to the moment you left the house. You said you were going to get your mother some wood, right? Do you remember about what time that might have been?”

 

By the time Ella Devine left, it was nearly six o’clock. George would have only one more hour before the crowds started to push through the doors of the Pontiac Theater below his office and his floorboards began to shake with the deep, rich sounds of the trombone, the clarinet and the saxophone. He knew he should stay and work through it, but then he would miss dinner again. Marianne would be upset even though she was usually quite supportive when she knew he had a case coming to trial.

Marianne was that kind of wife. She had seen him through law school and his scotch and cigar days. She had been patient during those years when he had believed that success was measured by the weight of a client’s wallet and the length of the marble staircase leading to the courthouse doors. And when all that was out of his system, she had brought him here to a place that could only be described as God’s country. Well, God’s country with just enough wealthy New York City tourists in need of lawyers to keep a good, solid roof over their heads.

 

But Marianne was easily agitated these days, completely on edge and not without reason. Their son was gone. A run-away. It had been six months and barely a word. They knew where Sammy was. He was living with some other family on the Onondaga Nation just south of Syracuse. He was living among “his people.” His people. Those were his words. At 14 years old, he had no right to call anyone else his people. His place was at home with his parents, under their roof, at their dinner table eating the food Marianne had prepared him, studying the subjects they had approved and climbing into the bed they had provided him. At least he was safe. That much George knew and that knowledge helped him sleep at night. Marianne wasn’t so sure and nothing George said or did could convince her otherwise.

            George took a breath and tried to concentrate on the trial that would begin in six weeks. Just how had he become involved in all this? Why did they choose him?  He rubbed his forehead hard with the palm of his hand. Just six weeks to prepare the defense for three murder suspects. Six weeks. Under normal circumstances he would have had more time – six or seven months, maybe even a year. But one defendant, John LeRoche, was ill. His heart was poor and had already given out on him once. By some miracle, he was still alive though his breathing was shallow, his face was gray and he could not lift his body from his bed. His co-defendants were loyal to a fault. They were willing to risk their own freedom by forgoing most of the pretrial discovery hearings and moving the case along. Their gift to him was resolution and, hopefully, absolution, before his death. John LeRoche would not testify. He would not even attend the trial, under his doctor’s orders and with the judge’s consent. The judge had promised that he would instruct the jury to hold no prejudice against him for his lack of participation. It was unusual, for sure, and there were no guarantees that John LeRoche would even make it until opening day. But he was trying. He was saving his energy, laughing when he could and letting his family care for him. Few who knew him doubted that he could make it until the verdict came in.

George was staring at the legal pad full of notes from his interview with Ella Devine, thinking about exactly how and when to use her testimony, when Ethan slipped through the slightly ajar door and slid into the chair Ella had recently vacated. Ethan was long and thin like Ella, but unlike her, it seemed that there was no strength in his frame. He had a fragile look about him, like he would snap under the pressure of even the slightest breeze. But that was what made him so valuable. Ethan was born and raised here in the Adirondack Mountains, where clusters of civilization were isolated from one another by miles and miles of thick, seemingly impenetrable wilderness. In his 32 years, Ethan had learned how to get around. He knew how to bend and glide and ease his way through the most impenetrable of situations. And he usually did so unnoticed.

“I’m stepping out for a bite to eat, but I figured on coming back,” Ethan said, his voice full of energy. He was excited about this case. He had been excited from the moment the three defendants had first contacted George. “Just leave me a note. You’ve got an early morning ahead of you.”

“Don’t bother.  This might be your last night to yourself for the next two months. Take it,” George said, waving him out of his office. “I’ll need you to be fresh tomorrow anyway. No sense burning out now.”

Really, I don’t mind. I’m only—”               

“Go.”

“Well,” Ethan stood as smoothly as he had seated himself and placed a hat over his unnaturally straight, dark, copper hair. “All right then. I’ll be around if your need me.”

George could hear the heavy door shut at the end of the hallway as his clerk headed down the dimly lit staircase to the street below. When the office was quiet, he leaned back in his chair and stared at the intricate patterns in the pressed-tin ceiling above. In most cases like this, each defendant would have his own lawyer, but these men weren’t like that. Cyril Cole, John LeRoche and Paul McDonald had been friends for decades and their bond was tight. They were determined that if the jury found one innocent, all would be freed. If one saw his end in the electric chair, so would the others.

“That’s just the way it is,” Cyril Cole had said.

That’s how they approached George Alberts – together during a meeting at the sick man’s house. He had tried to talk them out of it. He’d never handled a murder case before and he should have turned them down. But they were convincing and he was far too tempted. He needed this. George had had no regrets about moving to the Adirondack Mountains, where his wife had grown up, to raise their son. But he had other regrets, regrets that he never spoke of to Marianne. He’d been excited by the law in the early years and he couldn’t seem to find that passion anymore. Somehow, his work had become routine, a source of income instead of a source of pride. This case thrilled him in a way no case had before and he couldn’t let go of that.

He didn’t want to.

George was sure that his clients had planned Henry Roth’s death, but he was equally certain that they were not guilty of murder. They gave few details of that day or of the week that led up to it. They readily admitted to their knowledge of the rape and to the strength of their anger. Ella was like a daughter to them. Their reaction to her rape was no different than any other father’s might have been. They each told the same story of Henry Roth’s death, how he stepped before a sled full of logs, just after they were released for their journey down an icy path toward the river, and was crushed to death. Yet they fell silent when pressed for more details, the same details they gave the sheriff that day. George had made it clear that he wanted to hear only what the men were willing to say under oath. He gathered from their silence what a jury would gather, that they were hiding something. Worse, if they failed to answer questions on the stand, the judge would find them in contempt of court.

For those reasons, he knew he could not let them testify. This would make his job even more difficult. Though the judge would instruct the jury not to assume guilt from their lack of testimony, George knew that the jurors were only human. He would have to work harder than ever to overcome that prejudice and that would mean hours and hours, days and days of investigative work on top of the work he was already doing. Fortunately, he had Ethan and plenty of friends who owed him favors. He already had put the word out that he needed everything he could get, including any rumors about Henry Roth, names of enemies he might have made, any conversations overheard among the three defendants, especially any that might have implied that they were planning a murder.

Though he had never handled a murder, George did have 23 years of trial experience. And one thing he had learned was that it was a mistake to overlook even the most seemingly insignificant piece of evidence. Already, he had lined up two interviews for the next day with potential witnesses who might be able to testify in favor of the three men. One of the witnesses had seen Cyril Cole, the foreman of the logging crew, and Paul McDonald, calm down the third defendant who had tried to fight Henry Roth. Another was a sheriff’s deputy who said he had information that George would find quite interesting. He wouldn’t elaborate and he insisted on meeting George on a remote beach on Lower Saranac Lake, a half-mile hike from the road. George knew he was taking a chance meeting with the deputy alone in such a remote area, so despite his request that he tell no one of their meeting, he had told Ethan. He was willing take some chances, but he did have a family to think about.

With that meeting on his mind, George grabbed a stack of files and shoved them in his briefcase. He snapped it shut, threw his suit jacket over his shoulder, turned off his office lights and locked the door on his way out. The rest of his work could wait until Marianne was snug in bed, he decided. Marianne could not.