Plain Truth (36 page)

“Because my client is being denied a constitutional right— a fair trial among her peers. However, not a single Amishman or woman will be sitting on that jury. In our society—in our system—her peers do not exist.” I took a deep breath as the judge's eyes narrowed slightly. “I would consider asking for a trial in front of a judge, or even asking for a change of venue, but neither applies here—either of those options would still compromise her right to fair trial. A typical jury that's a cross-section of America is not a cross-section of an Amish community, Your Honor. And if my client is not judged by people who understand her faith and her upbringing and, well, her world—then she's at a marked disadvantage.”

The judge turned to the district attorney. “Mr. Callahan?”

“Your Honor, the fact remains that Ms. Fisher broke a law of the United States government. She is going to be tried in a United States court of law. It doesn't matter if she's Amish, Buddhist, or Zulu—she played with fire, and she is now required to deal with the consequences of her actions.”

“Oh, please. She's not an international terrorist who set off a bomb in the World Trade Center. She's an American citizen, which entitles her to objective treatment under the law.”

George turned, and said under his breath, “American citizens pay taxes.”

“Excuse me, I don't think the court reporter quite got that,” the judge commented.

I smiled at her. “The county attorney was just erroneously making assumptions about my client's fiscal responsibility. The Amish pay taxes, George. If they're self-employed, they don't pay Social Security, because they don't use Medicare or Medicaid or any of the other services it funds, since they believe in caring for their own elderly. If they're employed by someone else, they get Social Security taken out of their paychecks and never use a penny of it. The Amish don't pay gasoline taxes, but they pay real estate taxes, which support public schools they don't even use. They also don't take advantage of federal agriculture subsidies, welfare, and student loans.” Turning to the judge, I said, “This is my point exactly, Judge Ledbetter. If the prosecutor in this case is already coming into court with preconceived misconceptions about the Amish, that prejudice will be multiplied by twelve on a traditional jury.”

The judge pinched the bridge of her nose. “You know, Ms. Hathaway, I've actually given this motion of yours a great deal of thought. It's extremely distressing for me to think that a United States citizen might, simply by religious affiliation, not be able to get a fair trial. What you said in your brief is absolutely valid.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

“Unfortunately for you and your client, what Mr. Callahan just said in response is absolutely valid as well. We have a defendant on trial for murder here, not for stealing a pack of gum. It's irresponsible to dismiss a trial of such magnitude. And although I think we can all pretty much guarantee that not a single Amish person will sit on that jury, the truth is, Ms. Hathaway, your client wouldn't get a jury of her peers no matter what court in America this case winds up in. At least in Lancaster she'll have the next best thing: twelve people who live and work in this community with the Amish on a daily basis. Twelve people who, one hopes, are slightly more knowledgeable about their Amish neighbors than the average cross-section of America.” She looked directly at me. “I'm going to deny your motion to dismiss, Ms. Hathaway, but I thank you for bringing up a provocative subject.” The judge flattened her hands on top of her desk. “Now, if there's nothing else, I'd like to set the date for jury selection.”

“Three and a half weeks,” I said, letting the sheet float down over the bed in Elam's
grossdawdi ham
. “That's when the trial starts.”

Sarah tucked in the linens across from me and exhaled with relief. “I can't wait until it's over,” she said. Turning troubled eyes to Katie, she asked, “Was it upsetting to be there?”

“Katie spent the hearing sitting on a bench outside the judge's office. At the trial, she'll be sitting beside me at the defense table. The prosecutor's never going to be able to get the chance to upset her, because she won't be on the witness stand. That was part of the reason we decided to use an insanity defense.”

Katie finished stuffing the final pillow into a fresh case. At that last sentence, she cried out, so softly that I was surprised both Sarah and I had heard it. “Will you stop? Will you please just stop?” With an anguished groan, she turned on her heel and left.

Sarah picked up her skirts and began to hurry after Katie, but I stayed her with a hand on her arm. “Please,” I said gently. “Let me.”

At first I didn't see her, curled into a small knot in the rocking chair. I closed the door and sat down on my bed, then used a strategy I'd learned from Coop—I just shut up and waited. “I can't do this,” she said, her face still buried against her knees. “I can't live this way.”

Every nerve in my body snapped alert. As a defense attorney,

I'd heard those words dozens of times—usually prefacing a gut-wrenching confession. At this point, even if Katie told me she'd murdered that infant in cold blood, I would still use the insanity defense to get her off—but I also knew I'd fight a lot harder for her if I could believe, for whatever reason, that she truly didn't know what she had been doing at the time. “Katie,” I said. “Don't tell me anything.”

That got her attention. “After months of pushing me, you say that?”

“Tell Coop, if you have to. But I'm going to mount a much more compelling defense if we don't have the conversation you want to have.”

She shook her head. “I can't let you get up there and lie about me.”

“It's not a lie, Katie. Even you don't know what happened, exactly. You told Coop and Dr. Polacci there are things you can't remember.”

Katie leaned forward. “I do remember.”

My pulse began to pound behind my temples. “Your memory keeps changing, Katie. It's changed at least three times since I met you.”

“The father of the baby is a man named Adam Sinclair. He owned the apartment that Jacob rents in State College. He left before he ever found out … that I was having a baby.” Her words were soft, her face even softer. “I blocked it all out, at first. And by the time I could admit what had happened, it was too late. So I kept pretending things were the way they had always been.

“I fell asleep after I had the baby in the barn. I was going to go inside and take him to my mother, Ellie, but my legs were too shaky to stand. I just wanted to rest a minute. And then the next thing I knew, I woke up.” She blinked at me. “The baby was gone.”

“Why didn't you go to look for it?”

“I was so scared. More scared than I was about my parents finding out, because the whole time I was telling myself that this was the Lord's will, I think I knew what I was going to discover. And I didn't want to.”

I stared hard at her. “You still could have killed that baby, Katie. You could have sleepwalked. You could have smothered him without knowing what you were doing.”

“No.” By now, she was crying again, her face red and blotchy. “I couldn't have, Ellie. Once I saw that baby, I wanted him. I wanted him so much.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “In my life, that baby was the best thing—and the worst thing—I'd ever done.”

“Was the baby alive when you fell asleep?”

She nodded.

“Then who killed it?” I stood up, angry. Eleventh-hour confessions were not the stuff of great defenses. “It was two in the morning, it was two months before your due date, and no one knew you were pregnant. Who the hell else came in there and killed that baby?”

“I don't know,” Katie sobbed. “I don't know, but it wasn't me, and you can't go into that trial and tell them I did.” She looked up at me. “Don't you see what's happened since I started lying? My whole world has come apart, Ellie. A baby's died. Everything's gone wrong.” She fisted her hands and buried them in her apron. “I want to make my things right.”

The very thought sent me reeling. “We're not talking about a confession in front of a bunch of ministers, Katie. That may get you redemption in the Amish church, but in a court of law, it'll get you fifteen years to life.”

“I don't understand—”

“No, you don't. That's why you hired me, an attorney—to lead you through the court system. The only way you're going to be acquitted is if I get up there and use a good defense. And the best one we've got is insanity. No jury in the world is going to buy you on the witness stand, saying that you fell asleep and woke up and whaddaya know, the baby was missing. And so very conveniently dead, too.”

Katie set her jaw. “But it's the truth.”

“The only place the truth is going to save you from a charge of first-degree murder is in a perfect world. A court is far from a perfect world. From the moment we walk in there, it's not about what really happened. It's about who has the best story to sell to the jury.”

“I don't care if it's a perfect world or not,” Katie said. “It's not my world.”

“You tell the truth on the stand, and the only world you're going to know is the State Penitentiary.”

“If that's the Lord's will, then I'll accept it.”

Furious, I glared at her. “You want to play martyr? Go ahead. But I'm not going to be sitting next to you while you commit legal suicide.”

For a while Katie was silent. Then she turned to me, eyes wide and clear. “You have to, Ellie. Because I need you.” She sat beside me on the bed, so close that I could feel the heat from her body. “I'm not going to fit into that English courtroom. I'm going to stand out, with how I dress, and how I think, because I'm not English. I don't know about murder and witnesses and juries, but I do know how to fix things in my life when they're messed up. If you make a mistake and you repent, you're forgiven. You're welcomed back. If you lie, and keep lying, there won't be a place for you.”

“Your community looked the other way when it came to hiring me,” I said. “They'll understand why you need to do this, too.”

“But
I
won't.” She folded her hands together, as if she were in prayer. “Maybe these lies will get me free, like you say, and I won't have to go to the English jail. But Ellie, then where do I go? Because if I lie to save myself there, I won't be able to come back here.”

I closed my eyes and thought about the church service where Katie had gotten down to confess. I thought about the faces of the others sitting in that hot, cramped room as they passed judgment—not vindictive, not spiteful … but relieved, as if Katie's humility made them all a little bit stronger. I thought of the afternoon when we'd all worked to bring in the corn; how it had felt to be a part of something bigger than myself. I thought of Sarah's face, when she laid eyes on Jacob for the first time in years.

What good was a personal victory to someone who'd spent her life losing herself for the greater good of everyone else?

Katie's hand, callused and small, slipped into my own. “All right,” I sighed. “Let's see what we can do.”

II.

Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

—Matthew 6:3

ELEVEN

J
udge Philomena Ledbetter watched the attorney fumble her pen for the third time since she'd entered chambers. For a big-city legal eagle, Ellie Hathaway seemed as skittish as a lawyer knee-deep in her first litigation—all the more bizarre, given the fact that just yesterday, she'd been confident and competent. “Counselor,” the judge said, “you called us back for a discussion?”

“Yes, Your Honor. I felt there was a need for more argument before the trial. Certain … circumstances have come to light.”

Sitting on her right, George Callahan snorted. “In the ten hours since we last met?”

Judge Ledbetter ignored his comment. She wasn't too thrilled herself to be called in on short notice and forced to juggle her schedule to make accommodations. “Would you care to elaborate, Ms. Hathaway?”

Ellie swallowed. “I would not normally do this, I want to say that up front. And this is not my choice. Due to confidentiality I can't say everything, but my client believes—that is, I believe …” She cleared her throat. “I need to withdraw my defense of guilty but mentally ill.”

“Excuse me?” George said.

Ellie straightened her spine. “In its place, we're entering a plea of not guilty.”

Judge Ledbetter frowned. “I'm sure you know that at this point—”

“Believe me, I know everything. I don't have a choice, Your Honor. In order to keep my ethical obligations to the court and to my client, I have to do this. I'm just trying to give you as much notice as I've had.”

Predictably, George exploded. “You can't do this three and half weeks before the trial!”

“Why should it make any difference to you?” Ellie snapped. “You were supposed to be trying to prove all along she wasn't insane—and now I'm telling you you're right. This isn't about me screwing up your prosecution, George; it's about me screwing up my own defense.” Taking a deep breath, she turned toward the judge. “I'd like more time to prepare, Your Honor.”

The judge raised her brows. “Wouldn't we all, Ms. Hathaway,” she said dryly. “Well, I'm sorry, but you're on the docket for three and half weeks from now, and this is your decision.”

With a terse nod, Ellie gathered her things and stormed out of chambers, leaving both the county attorney and the judge wondering what had just transpired.

Ellie hurried out of the judge's chambers and through the hallways of the superior court, then burst through the front doors of the building and stopped dead, staring at the bleak, bare arms of the trees and the overcast sky. She had absolutely no idea what to do next. Her mind was running a million places at once—damn good thing, since she had less than a month to mount a defense that was a 180-degree reversal of what she'd been planning.