Now, she looked at the clock on the courtroom wall as she waited for the cleaner to sanitize the stand for the next prospective juror. They had half an hour left in the schedule. The room felt muggy. Pandemic protocols dictated that only the judge, the bailiff, a deputy, the court reporter, the prosecution, the defense, and the defendant were allowed in the room. Normally, there were dozens of spectators or at least a court monitor in the gallery. Without them, the process felt staged, as if they were all actors doing their parts.
That wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Only nine jurors had been seated so far. They needed three more, plus two alternates. The initial questions from the judge had winnowed the pool of forty-eight down to twenty-seven. They had six left to interview, then a fresh batch would be scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Andrew shifted in his chair. Leigh avoided his gaze, which was hard to do when someone was sitting directly beside you. Liz had her head bent down as she scribbled notes at the end of the table. Jacob was on Andrew’s left, sifting through the remaining questionnaires, trying to glean a detail that would make him look brilliant and useful.
One of Leigh’s professors in law school had insisted that cases were lost or won during jury selection. Leigh had always enjoyed trying to game out the system, picking and choosing the right personalities for deliberations—the leaders, the followers, the questioners, the intransigent true believers. The process today was particularly meaningful because it would likely be the last time Leigh sat in the attorney’s chair at the defense table.
Walter had tried to call two more times before Leigh had turned off both her phones. All devices were supposed to be silenced during court, but that wasn’t the reason why she wasn’t answering. Gossip traveled at the speed of light in the Hollis Academy community. Leigh knew that Walter would be calling about Ruby Heyer’s brutal murder. She knew that Walter would be sending Maddy away with his mother. She knew that he would end up at the police station telling the cops everything because that was the only way to guarantee Maddy’s safety.
At least that was what Leigh told herself every other hour.
She spent the hours in between telling herself that Walter would never turn her in. He hated her right now, but he was neither rash nor vengeful. Leigh thought that he would talk to her before he went to the cops. And then she thought about how sickened Walter would be by Ruby’s murder and how terrified he would be about Maddy’s safety and the rollercoaster started back up the hill again.
The cleaner had finished sanitizing the stand from the last prospective juror, a retired English professor who had made it clear she could not be impartial. Normally, the jurors were seated in groups inside the courtroom, but Covid protocols had scattered them down a long hallway and into the deliberation room. They were allowed to bring books and use the courthouse WiFi, but the wait could be mind-numbingly tedious.
The bailiff opened the door, calling, “Twenty-three, you’re up.”
They all stirred as an older man took his place to be sworn in. Jacob slid the jury questionnaire in front of Leigh. Andrew sat back, but he didn’t bother to look down at the page. His interest had evaporated once he’d realized there was no psychological angle to be played. Only questions and answers and gut instinct. The law was never what anyone thought it was or wanted it to be.
Twenty-three’s name was Hank Bladel. He was sixty-three years old and had been married for forty years. Leigh studied his craggly face as he sat down. Bladel had a spattering of white in his beard and the ropey arms of a man who kept himself fit. Shaved head. Straight shoulders. Firm voice.
Jacob had drawn two horizontal lines in the corner of Bladel’s questionnaire, which meant he was on the fence as to whether or not the man would be good for Andrew. Leigh knew which way she was leaning, but she tried to keep an open mind.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bladel.” Dante had been keeping his examinations brief. It was late in the day. Everybody was tired. Even the judge seemed to be nodding off, his head tilted down toward the papers on his desk, his eyes doing slow blinks as he pretended to listen.
Turner had been true to form so far, bending over backward to give Andrew the white man’s golden handshake. Leigh had learned the hard way that she had to speak carefully around the judge. He demanded the kind of formality that you would expect of a supreme court justice. She had lost more than one ruling because he didn’t brook mouthy women.
She tuned back into Dante’s questioning, which followed the same predictable pattern. Bladel had never been the victim of sexual assault. He had never been the victim of a crime. Neither had any family members that he knew of. His wife was a nurse. Both of his daughters were nurses, too. One was married to an EMT, the other to a warehouse supervisor. Before Covid, Bladel had worked full-time as a driver for an airport limo company, but now he was part-time and volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club of America. All of that lined up beautifully for the defense but for one thing: he had served twenty years in the military.