CHAPTER 25
Saturday, June 17, 2017
THE CARIBBEAN AIR WAS WET AND THICK AS SIDNEY WALKED FROMthe Hewanorra International Airport. A line of taxicabs waited for their turn to zip tourists around the island, the drivers eager to load suitcases into trunks and graciously accept tips from excited Americans and Brits overly gratuitous at the start of their vacations. Bringing these tourists back to the airport was never as fruitful as shuffling them to their resorts. Spirits were high and wallets loose at the dawn of their journey, quite the opposite by week’s end.
So it was a strange expression the cabbie offered when he stepped from his car to find Sidney with nothing but a small rolling suitcase instead of stacks of luggage. That she was alone was another oddity. And her request, to be taken to the Bordelais Correctional Facility, was most peculiar of all.But,the cabbie thought as he climbed behind the wheel,a fare is a fare.
It took forty minutes to reach Dennery, and it was the first time he’d dropped an American at the prison. The cab crested a hill and the clearing came into view, where the white rectangle buildings stood within a perimeter offence. The driver pulled down, through the visitor’s gate and into the parking lot.
“I’ll be an hour. Hour and a half, at the most,” the American woman asked. “I’ll pay you to wait for me.”
They settled on a fare. She offered half, delivering the American dollars over the seat. “I’ll give you the other half when I get back, plus the toll back to the airport. Actually, Charlery’s Inn. Do you know it?”
“Yeh, man. No problem.”
The driver watched her walk to the prison entrance, where a guard waited for her. Once she was inside, he pulled the car into a parking spot, shut off the engine, and took a nap.
* * *
Her father and Marshall had visited three weeks earlier, so Grace was surprised to hear she had another visitor so soon. Usually, they came every three to four months. Sometimes it stretched to longer intervals, and she always recognized the annoyance in Marshall’s eyes at the long span between visits. Despite Marshall’s attempts to disguise it, Grace knew his condition was deteriorating. She noticed that his motor skills had diminished greatly in the last two years. The day he showed up in a wheelchair broke her heart. Marshall always complained to Grace that “they” wouldn’t come any sooner, referring to their parents. Although Grace appreciated her brother’s loyalty, and his desire to see her more often, she was no fool. Grace understood the cost, both in time and treasure, it took to travel to a foreign country to visit a daughter they loved, but whom they had determined they could no longer help. That Marshall simply didn’t have the means or the ability to visit on his own was another source of his anger. His independent spirit, even after two decades of being reliant on his parents, had never died. The accident, that horrible part of their life, had taken so much from him, but it hadn’t harmed his rebellious and sovereign mind-set.
With subtle headshakes and quick winks that wentunnoticed by her parents, Grace always let Marshall know during their visits that she understood. If it were up to him, he’d come every weekend. And Grace truly believed that if Marshall had been a normally functioning adult with a middle-class job, he would come to St. Lucia every week or two to visit her. It broke Grace’s heart that her parents, aging and tired after nearly twenty years of caring for their ailing son, had relied more and more lately on outside help for Marshall’s care. Marshall hated the facility where they were planning to place him, something he made very clear in his letters to Grace.
Although he was unable to travel independently to St. Lucia, Marshall was free to communicate through written word. His letters had become one of Grace’s greatest comforts over the years. They arrived like clockwork. At least twice a week, sometimes more, and Grace never grew tired of them. In those folded pages, Marshall kept her abreast of what was happening at home: His crumbling relationship with their parents. Their growing impatience with hiscondition—that was the word that the Sebolds used when discussing Marshall with doctors and therapists. From Marshall’s visits over the years and from his letters, Grace knew that no one gave her younger brother enough credit. He’d never be the athlete he once was, and would never mentally be the same person he was before they climbed into the car on that fateful night, but Grace’s brother was still one of the smartest people she knew. His intelligence was etched throughout his letters.
Despite the short span between visits, her stomach still fluttered with excitement to see him. She followed the guard into the visitation room and sat at the table. The guard closed the door and Grace waited in silence while the screening process took place outside. She looked up when the door opened moments later. Sidney Ryan walked into the room. Grace smiled.
“This is unexpected. I thought we were scheduled to talk on the phone this Tuesday.”
“Hi, Grace,” Sidney said as she sat in the chair opposite her. “Sorry to show up unannounced. This couldn’t wait.”
“What is it?”
“When I sat across from you last time, I told you I wasn’t sure what I believed. Today I think I do. I met with a forensic pathologist back in the States who refuted the claim that the paddleboard oar caused Julian’s head injury. And, although it’s her opinion, she backed it up quite impressively with experimentation that I hope to base the next episode on.”
“That’s great,” Grace said. “I mean . . .” Grace’s eyes became wet with tears. “Sorry,” she said as she wiped her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. “It’s been a long time since I’ve cried over any of this. But someone is listening to me. Finally someone is helping me. I knew that you’d find something if you looked.” She reached across the table and squeezed Sidney’s hand. “Thank you.”
Sidney nodded. “Listen, Grace. This thing with the oar, it was really impressive what Dr. Cutty was able to show. It’ll make an explosive episode. But I still need to disprove key aspects of your conviction.”
Grace lifted her chin. “Okay.”
“Julian’s blood. It’s a problem. It was discovered in the sink of your cottage bathroom.”
Grace smiled. “So I’ve been told.”
“I know you don’t have access to the Internet, but for each site that supports you and tries to raise money for you, there’s another site or message board that talks about how guilty you are. And a lot of what they talk about is the fact that Julian’s blood was all over your room.”
“I’ve seen the websites. Marshall sends me that stuff. Prints out all the Web pages and bundles them together so I can read them.” Grace smiled. “Grisly Grace Sebold drippingwith blood like Carrie White in Chamberlain, Maine. To the public, it was like popcorn—devoured kernel by kernel, while being fully entertained. To me, sitting in that courtroom and listening to it all during my trial, it was preposterous. And therein lies the problem with our—and by that I mean the world’s—justice system. We are allowed to simply defend ourselves against absurd allegations, but the dirty little secret is that if the prosecution wants to convict someone badly enough, all they have to do is make the most farcical accusations they can think of, make many of them, and make them often enough to sway the jury. The blood was not found all over my room. It was found in the bathroom.”
“Okay,” Sidney said. “But the fact thatanyof Julian’s blood was in your room is a sticking point for your critics.”
“And for you?”
Sidney shrugged. “It . . . confuses me. And if it confuses me, it will confuse my audience. Julian’s blood is a problem, Grace. His blood in the bathroom, his blood in the sink, and his blood on the oar. And another problem is the bleach that was used to hide it. So I can credibly show that the oar wasn’t used to kill Julian, but I need you to help me with the rest.”
“It wasn’t bleach.”
Sidney squinted her eyes.
