“I wonder about that. I wonder if it was just a defense move to derail the process.”
I was about to say that I knew for a fact that she was sick but instead took a neutral path. “She’s here now, I guess.”
The next person I passed was Suzanne Church, who covered her eyes with one hand. The third person I passed was my mother. I did a real double take, seeing her, walking past her, then recognizing her.
“What?” I said.
“I’m interested,” she said.
“Are you going to come to the whole thing?”
“I’m not sure. I took some time off. I hope you don’t mind.”
“It’s a public courtroom,” I said, but then I reached out and took her hand. Not only did I not mind, but I was also pitifully grateful for her presence, for the opportunity to talk this over with someone so much more experienced than I was, or everhoped to be, with such awful things. That touch of hands also said,I know how overwhelmed you are; I will help you and never offend your fragile, young dignity.
It said also,Something else is wrong, but I won’t ask.
When my mother let go, she stared past me, and I turned just in time to see Sally Zankow throw her arms around Miranda, with more genuine feeling than I would have thought she was capable of. “McClatchey!” Sally shrieked. “Did you decide to come back from the dark side?”
“Nah, I like the dark side. I like the devil’s money. But, Sally, you haven’t aged one single day!”
Sally wouldn’t be distracted. She asked, “Come on, Miranda, what are you doing here?”
“Just observing for a few days. This thing, this case... You know, Felicity Wild grew up in my neighborhood. I knew her very well when she was a kid,” my mom said. “And, of course, this young woman here is my daughter.”
Sally didn’t know that, and reactions, from a puzzled crinkle to a wide-eyed smirk, galloped across her seasoned face. “Apple, tree, huh?” she said. My mom shrugged prettily.
Then the doors opened, and as we filed into the courtroom, the other press and I heading toward the front, the spectators settling themselves near the back, the first thing I noticed was the strippers.
A cluster of poppies in a hayfield, they were a row of women dressed not exactly inappropriately but as if they’d wandered into a municipal building in the belief that it was a nightclub. There were Dovey and Archangel and a handful of others I had only seen in passing, Rochelle and Marianna and Cheryl, who came from the East Coast and whom everyone called “Boston,” in skirts and blazers of bright daffodil and peacock blue, shiny thigh-high boots with impossibly high heels, black taffeta palazzo pants and black silk cowl-neck blouses with decks of goldchains, some hung with a crucifix. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was the worst possible retinue of attendants for Felicity’s image as the demure young scholar she had once been, but it was the sweetest possible display of solidarity for a sister in a jam. Shoulder to shoulder, they took quick glances, like sips, at everything around them.
Then the bailiff said, “Please, all rise for the Honorable Judge Deborah Martin...” and an older woman, slight, neat, bespectacled, wearing a Ruth Bader Ginsburg lace collar at the throat of her judicial robes, took her seat, inviting everyone else present to do the same.
Into the room came Felicity, shockingly thin, her cheekbones sharp, even more hauntingly beautiful, the green dress with the gathered details hanging loose from her frail shoulders. Only when I studied her closely did I notice that her eyes were as frantic as fish in a bowl, darting from her defense attorney to the jury box, where sat twelve upright people who would decide if she walked out of this place to go home or if she walked out of it to get into a van that would convey her to prison for the rest of her life, or at least for the rest of the best part of it, to a place that would make the Dane County jail look quaint, a place where many of the women would be rough and desperate and even crazy, who would try to befriend her or romance her or destroy her. Felicity was strong and smart, but now she was beaten down. I could not see how she would survive that.
Sam, my beautiful and beloved, pulled her chair out for her, settling her between him and an attractive older woman in a light gray suit. The case called, the counsel introduced, Judge Martin said, “Good day. I need a preliminary word. It has not escaped my attention that this is a high-profile murder trial with some very unusual elements, to say the least. Still, it is an event of the utmost seriousness, with the highest stakes for the families of the men who died, and the fate of a young womanto be decided. This is my courtroom. I will have no shenanigans. Anyone who speaks out of turn or otherwise acts up will be out of here so fast it will make your head spin. I will eject you on the spot and ask questions later. I hope that this is understood. Let’s begin.”
Since I knew I could obtain the transcripts to make sure that I could quote with absolute accuracy what the participants said, when I took out my dark pink notebook, it was to take down only general observations of the trial’s progress, but even more to describe the scene, the behaviors, the temperature of the emotions that transcripts could not convey.
I studied the room as everyone got settled.
The jury was like a photo negative of the strippers, an opposite: eight plain women and four plain men, dressed in the kinds of clothing that would not have been out of place at the Starbright Ministry. Sam said he’d sought out women in jury selection for the exact opposite reason that the prosecution did. The district attorney believed that righteous women would be stern critics of Felicity’s life, while Sam and his mother gambled that any woman, no matter how conservative, would have endured and resented criticism from men. Every one of the jurors appeared apprehensive, even frightened, whether of the surroundings, the process, the strippers, or of Felicity, I couldn’t say. My mom caught my eye and gave the briefest ghost of a nod:You’re good, it said. It helped me, and, for an instant, I caught myself wishing that Felicity, guilty or innocent, with much more to lose, had her own mother in her court.
The prosecutor stood. He buttoned his suit jacket as if buckling on his battle shield and said, “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Israel Ronson, and I am the district attorney here in Dane County. Often, an assistant district attorney would be prosecuting a serious case such as this one, although I would pay very close attention to its progress. However, as the Honorable JudgeMartin has stated, this is an unusual and a controversial case. I am pleased to meet all of you, but this is not a day I looked forward to. On this most beautiful day, a summer morning in the beautiful state of Wisconsin, in the beautiful city where we live and are privileged to live, we are here to do a duty that no one wants to do but that is right and necessary and in all our interest. And that is to seek justice for two people who are here today only in the memories of those who loved them, their wives, their children, their beloved relatives, two men who worked hard and served their communities and loved their families and made people proud to know them.”
He raised his hands as though to welcome the jury into a friendly hug. “They weren’t movie stars or politicians or athletes. They were just ordinary people, people you wouldn’t necessarily remember if you saw them passing you on the street, except if they helped you put your groceries in the car or told you your taillight had a broken bulb.” For a moment, he turned away, and then leaned in, confidingly. “They weren’t perfect. They had weaknesses. They were tempted by a seductive woman into doing something that no self-respecting man should ever do, paying for sex outside his marriage. Emil’s wife was ill. They hadn’t had a sexual relationship for years. Cary and his wife were at odds for a long time, and finally at war, although they were working it out. Is that any excuse? No. You might say that they put themselves in harm’s way, but so does anybody who rides a motorcycle or smokes a cigar. But most people who do things they shouldn’t do aren’t murdered for it.” He paused, as if struggling to hear a sound in the far distance. “And now, they are gone. They’re gone forever.”
He talked about how Erica Doll Gardener would die alone. He talked about the children whose dad, Cary Church, would “gradually become a photo on a wall in the hallway growing older with each passing year.” They would not have the loveand financial support every child deserves from their dad. They would have his life insurance benefits, but so would his killer, Felicity Wild. “If she walks away from this charge, she will get that money. A huge amount of money, millions of dollars. Think about that. She will be rewarded for her evil and greedy actions unless you say no, that isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”
Israel Ronson described the discovery of the bodies, the false starts and final conclusions. He made air quotes to point out how Felicity “didn’t know” who’d killed Emil Gardener, how she “panicked” when she found his body and called one of her “many friends” to get that body out of her place and into a so-called “cold and lonely” snowbank.
“We’re not talking about a crime of passion. We’re talking about a plan by one person to live a rich and easy life and who didn’t care whose lives she destroyed to make that possible. In fact, in all my years of being a prosecutor, I’ve never encountered a person quite so cold and ambitious.”
Sam would admit he had to suppress a sigh as Ronson laid it on so thick, but that was a ploy right out of the playbook, exactly what he was supposed to do, an emotional appeal to people who were new to all this and eager to be guided toward doing the right thing.
Ronson was a very good-looking guy, slender and well over six feet, with a close crop of dense curly hair just dusted with silver. Next to him, Sam looked like a kid wearing his new suit for prom. As he wound things up, Ronson gave the jurors a look of surpassing tenderness and then, in what Sam would later tell me was a deliberate piece of theater, stood with his arm resting confidingly on the rail in front of the jury box before he spoke again. He removed his glasses, glanced down at them, and appeared to rub away a speck before he shook his head ruefully.
“That person is here in this courtroom now. She is there at the defense table, Felicity Claire Copeland Wild. No one else.Look at her, ladies and gentlemen. Her appearance is so lovely that everything I’m saying must be very hard for you to believe. Frankly, it was hard for me to believe. I had to ask myself, Israel, is there another possibility?” He went on to enumerate the uncertainties and then concluded, “There is no other possibility. The evidence will show that Felicity Wild is a very intelligent student of science, who would know that some poisons don’t leave a measurable trace.” She lived alone, he would say, with few close friends, her only visitors her clients. She could keep her secrets... she had the classic triad familiar from TV courtrooms: means, motive, and opportunity. She had, further, behaved in a guilty way. “If you found a friend dead in your bathroom, what would you do? Would you call someone to help you hide your friend’s body? Or would you call the police, just as fast as you could? Of course you would. An innocent woman would have called the police. Even if she was a drug dealer or something. Even if she had a meth lab in her backyard.” He talked about the confusing letters Cary Church left behind. “Why didn’t he just call the police? Or send an email? Very strange behavior, almost as though somebody else wanted proof that Cary was changing his story.”
