Over the years when Ellie Reiser had learned to survive the rigors of surgical residency and the demands of hospital life as a busy physician, Grace Sebold had learned to survive in a foreign penitentiary. Sidney would make sure that point came through clearly in the next episode.
“Did you know Julian Crist?”
“Not well,” Ellie said. “But, yes, I knew him. I knew Grace was crazy about him. They met in India during the summer after second year of medical school when Grace volunteered for a couple of weeks with a Doctors Without Borders program. Julian was at NYU, so I had only met him a couple of times before Sugar Beach.”
“During the trip to Sugar Beach, Grace and Julian broke the news that they were accepted to the same residency program in neurosurgery. But Grace’s interest was not always neurology, am I correct?”
“That’s right,” Ellie said. “She had wanted to go into obstetrics, same as myself. For most of our childhoods, we both wanted to deliver babies. Grace was born with—” Ellie stopped. “I’m not sure how much Grace told you, but she was born with a rare form of leukemia.”
“Yes,” Sidney said. “Marshall was a matching bone marrow donor.”
“That’s right,” Ellie said. “It made Grace want to deliver babies. She said she wanted to protect them.” Ellie smiled. “That was our thing, sort of our childhood dream that we shared.”
“What changed her mind about obstetrics?”
There was a short pause as Ellie searched for the correct wording. “Marshall’s accident. Did Grace’s parents tell you about that?”
“They did.”
“He’s . . . Marshall has had a lot of trouble since then. He’s not . . . TBI can change a person’s personality, and cause a number of physical ailments as well.”
“TBI, traumatic brain injury,” Sidney said to clarify.
“Correct. Marshall was never the same after the accident, and it broke Grace’s heart. Marshall’s condition is what caused Grace to go into neurology.” Ellie blinked a few times. “That was the plan. She obviously never got the chance.”
“The accident,” Sidney said. “I understand the driver of the U-Haul truck was charged with DUI.”
“Yes.”
“I still sensed, though, that Marshall Sebold holds you in contempt. He had a roundabout way of telling me about you.”
Ellie nodded slowly. “I’m afraid that will likely never change.”
Sidney pulled a stack of papers from her bag. “I counted sixty-two letters that you’ve sent me over the last three years asking for help,” Sidney said. “What makes you so certain Grace is innocent?”
“Oh . . . so many things,” Ellie said. “She’s my best friend, first of all, and I know she could never kill anyone. But that’s a subjective answer, and I understand it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. That’s just what’s in my heart. The better answer is that I was with Grace the night Julian died. Slept in her cottage at the resort. Simply stated, I’m her alibi. You can run the timeline anyway you’d like—and I have many times overthe years. There is no way Grace could have killed Julian that night.”
“How did the investigators and detectives in St. Lucia respond when you told them this?”
“They didn’t. They interviewed me once, and never asked me another question.”
“During that lone interview, though, did you tell them you were with Grace the night Julian was killed?”
“Of course. But they weren’t interested in details that didn’t support their narrative. I eventually told my story to Grace’s attorney, but my testimony was not allowed during the trial.”
“Why?”
Ellie offered a dejected expression.
“The prosecutor argued that I’d been drinking that day, and that by evening, I was intoxicated. He argued that although I slept in Grace’s room, I was too drunk to know if she left after I . . . what they suggested, passed out. At trial, the prosecution petitioned the magistrate to keep my testimony out of the courtroom. The request was granted.”
“Hadyou been drinking?”
Ellie nodded. “We were twenty-five years old and on spring break. We werealldrinking.”
“Were you drunk?”
“Not to the point that I don’t remember being with Grace that night.”
