“But, ladies and gentlemen, what the evidence will show is that the defendant acted cruelly and deliberately when she murdered Rachel Boyd in cold blood, that she understood what she was doing, and that she knew what she was doing was terribly wrong.”
She paused to take a breath.
“I expect you’ll hear testimony from a doctor who has only recently begun treating the defendant, that she has no memory of the murder, and that she’s inhabited by other personalities, including the one who has expressed dark and violent fantasies, written about them extensively, and that these personas—or alters, as they’re referred to in the evidence—will make her not guilty of any crime. But the evidence will show that this diagnosis is in reality nothing more than an elaborate fantasy world created out of convenience and used as an excuse for this defendant to live out her deepest, darkest, and most depraved desires.”
And we were off.
CHAPTER 50
TRIAL DAY 11
STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS VERSUS PENNY FRANCONE
SHE’S SITTING IN HER seat at the counsel table designated for the defense team. Her attorney, Greg Navarro, occupies a chair to her right. She’s waiting for the big moment when she’ll be called to the witness stand to testify in her own defense.
She knows her name is Penny Francone, that she’s been accused of killing Rachel Boyd, and that Rachel Boyd is her birth mother. She knows this from flickers of memories of conversations she’s had with her mother, Grace, in a place called Edgewater, and because Attorney Navarro has told her so. She’s been told that Eve was the mainstay at Edgewater, which explains all of her memory gaps—those weren’t her memories to retain. But there’s something else feeding her awareness. It’s like a strange voice prattling inside her head, less of a whisper and more like a knowing, as if she’s experienced things she has no recollection of ever having done.
She doesn’t remember much of the time she spent locked up in Edgewater, but that knowing tells her she has lived there for quite a while. She knows she has multiple personalities inside her, and that the memories of her life inside Edgewater, possibly the memories of the murder itself, belong to one of her alters—probably to a girl named Eve. She’s the dark one. She also has no recollection of plunging a knife time and time again into Rachel’s body, but then, she’s lived with lost time for most of her life. It’s always so confusing that really anything feels possible, even herself committing a brutal murder.
She is wearing gray pants and a slim-fitting white blouse that her mother brought from home. She misses home, misses her mother, her family, her life. She looks behind her and sees her mother sitting in the front of the courtroom along with Jack and Aunt Annie.
To her surprise, Ryan is there, too, even though she knows he doesn’t like her. Ryan still blames her for their father’s death. Maybe he’s over it, she hopes, and that’s why he’s come. She wants to wave to her family, but knows that’s something she cannot do. Anything she does might influence the jury, Attorney Navarro warned. She’s been told to sit still and be quiet like a good girl, so that’s what she does. She is that girl.
She sees Dr. McHugh in the row behind her mother. The courtroom lights make his silver hair shine and his neatly trimmed beard glow. She has only a few memories of Dr. McHugh from Edgewater—for example, she can recall meeting him on the day she found out she was living in a special hospital that kept patients in handcuffs. That knowing feeling returns to tell her that Eve has spent a lot of time with Dr. McHugh.
There is much she can’t remember.
But she remembers this trial. Every day of it she has been Penny Francone.
The trial started on August 1, with twelve jurors selected plus two alternates. The prosecution called thirty-two witnesses to the stand. There were a number of police officers. Several of them had investigated Rachel’s murder, and others arrested her for that crime. The jurors saw diagrams and pictures of Rachel’s home. There was evidence—bloodstained clothes that belonged to her; her anchor pendant necklace, also bloodstained—all kept safe and contamination-free inside sealed evidence bags.
A medical examiner working for the prosecution testified about the wounds to Rachel’s body, and Maria Descenza shared murder fantasies that she claimed to have written with Eve, which is why Penny has no memory of them. A doctor who never treated her testified that DID wasn’t a real diagnosis, and a terrible man named Vincent Rapino glared at her angrily from the witness stand. He looked like he wanted to kill her.