Another breath.
“And then I heard him moan. I think I jumped, the sound scared me. I turned around to look at him, and his eyes were open. I thought he was going to get up, but he just lay there and said, ‘Joey, call 911. Please. She stabbed me.’”
“Did you call 911?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Duffy asks.
“Because my mother came back. She was paranoid that he wasn’t dead, and she needed to make sure. She saw that his eyes were open and that he was trying to speak, and then something … changed.”
“What changed?”
“She changed. She told me to finish cleaning up, to check everywhere, especially in the bathroom. She’d used Charles’s wife’s hairbrush and deodorant, and she wanted me to get them and put them in the bag. While I was in the bathroom, she must have left and gone into Lexi’s room. When I came out, she was sitting on the chair in the corner, and she had one of Lexi’s ice skates. She was putting it on and lacing it up. I couldn’t understand what she was doing. And…”
“Go on.” An imperceptible nod of encouragement. The crown attorney’s eyes were gleaming. She was going in for the kill.
Joey hesitated, as they’d practiced. She took a breath, as they’d practiced. And then she lifted her chin, looked Duffy square in the eyes, and spoke clearly, just as she’d been asked to do.
“My mother stomped on his neck.”
A couple of the jurors gasped.
Duffy waited a few seconds, and then she said softly, “Tell us the rest, Joelle.”
“She took off the skate and dropped it into the garbage bag with everything else.” Joey looked down at her hands. “And then we went home.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The judge, fully immersed in the testimony, almost forgot to acknowledge that the crown attorney was finished. Madeline Duffy had been seated for a good five seconds before he finally remembered to say, “Mr. Mitchell, your witness.”
Joey watched as her mother’s lawyer stood up. He was a shorter man wearing a shiny gray suit, and he only had hair on the sides and back of his head.
“Joelle, I’m Don Mitchell,” he said. “I want to thank you for being here today. I know this is hard. I’ll try and keep it brief, okay?”
“Okay,” Joey said.
He walked reluctantly toward her, acting as if he was sad to have to put her through this. But Duffy had explained that just as they had practiced Joey’s testimony, Ruby’s lawyer would have done the same with her mother. Everything in court was a stage act. Everything was rehearsed.
“You said you woke up in the guest bedroom to the sounds of your mother and Charles arguing. Did you hear what the argument was about?”
“I only heard bits and pieces.”
“Can you tell us about those bits and pieces?”
“My mother was mad that Charles wanted to break up again. She was yelling that he was just using her, and he was yelling at her to leave.”
“What else did they say?”
“That’s all I could hear.”
“So they weren’t fighting about you?”
Joey looked over at Duffy. “No. Not that I heard.”
Don Mitchell paced slowly. “So you didn’t hear your mother and Charles arguing about you at all?”
“Objection,” Duffy said. “Asked and answered.”
“Sustained,” the judge said.
Mitchell looked at the jury, then back at Joey. “We heard earlier testimony that two of your mother’s previous boyfriends are on the sex offender registry. Joey, have you ever been abused by any of your mother’s boyfriends?”
“Objection,” Duffy said. “How is this relevant?”
“It’s relevant, Your Honor,” Mitchell said. “I’m getting there.”
“Get there faster,” the judge said.
Mitchell cleared his throat. “At the family court hearing when your diaries were read out loud, you implied that one of your mother’s boyfriends—”
“Objection,” Duffy said loudly, standing up. “Permission to approach, Your Honor.”
Both lawyers moved toward the judge, who covered his microphone with his hand. They spoke in whispers for about a minute, and even though the courtroom was quiet and Joey was straining to hear them, she couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. But Duffy had told her this would probably happen.
Joey stared straight ahead. In her peripheral vision, she could sense her mother’s eyes on her. Deborah’s, too. She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with either of them.