Beach Wedding(21)

“In a minute, you members of the jury will have to go into that room and deliberate and come up with a verdict. What I do not want you to do is to think about what I think about your decision or what the defense thinks about it or the judge or the reporters or the world.

“What I want you to do is to think about what the man we are all here to stand for thinks about it. Because the reporters will soon leave and your lives will return to normal. Your vital connection to and responsibility for Noah Sutton—who can no longer speak for himself—will be with you for the rest of your life.”



30

The steak house on Main Street in Riverhead was one of those old-fashioned dark wood cave-like ones. I mean, it was really dark. Whenever anyone came in or out of the place, the suddenly sunlit doorway looked like the light at the far end of a mountain train tunnel.

Yeah, I thought as I nervously sat there with my father. Or was it the light from an oncoming freight train?

We were about to find out.

It was around one thirty in the afternoon, the third day after my dad’s summation, and the fate of Hailey Sutton was now in the jury’s hands.

The jury had gone to deliberate two days earlier, but there was still nothing by one o’clock when the judge had called for lunch.

In some cases, the jury asked to see the evidence or to have testimony provided for them again, but in this case, there was none of that.

Was that good? Bad? There was no way to know.

“C’mon, Terry. Eat up,” my dad said, gesturing at my cheeseburger.

My school was closed for a teachers’ conference, so my dad had actually let me come to court with him officially for the first time.

“Fine,” my dad said, cutting my burger in half with his steak knife and commandeering it.

Some upbeat jazz music suddenly emitted from the speakers over our booth. But I definitely wasn’t feeling it.

“How can you eat, Pop?” I said, watching him. “The only thing I feel like chewing is my nails.”

“Sean!” someone called over.

In the dimness, we looked over. It was the bartender, holding the phone toward my father.

“Hold those nails,” my dad said as he got up.

“Afternoon. Are you Mr. Rourke’s son?” a voice suddenly said from the steak-house shadows beside the booth as my dad got on the horn.

It was some voice, Southern and honey smooth and deep with an almost musical quality to it.

Holy shit, I thought as I turned and watched, starstruck, as Xavier Kelsey stepped into the table’s candlelight.

I’d seen him at the trial sitting behind the Suttons. He was quite the standout with his signature tortoiseshell glasses and bow tie. I’d read an article in the paper that said he had been hired by Vanity Fair to cover the trial.

Up close, his sharpened-to-a-point goatee gave his baby face a crafty fox-like quality, I thought. As did the intelligence in the eyes behind the glasses.

As I managed a nod, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author smiled as he stepped in close enough for me to smell his martini lunch breath.

“I have been through many a summation,” he said, “and I must say, your father’s was as compelling as I have ever witnessed. You should be proud of him.”

“I am,” I said.

When I looked over at the bar again, my dad was on his way back. I tried to read his face, but there was nothing. He looked about as emotional as a man rolling a trash can up his driveway.

“One more thing,” Kelsey said in his honey drawl. “I saw you at the trial and you seem quite familiar to me. I never forget a face. Ever. It’s driving me crazy. Have I not seen you somewhere before?”

I suddenly noticed that the overhead boppity-bip music was really working up a frenzy as I looked up at him.

He had seen my face. From the opposite side of a bar. Near the end of the night at Noah’s party, I remembered refilling his champagne glass.

But as I had no desire to be a Vanity Fair exclusive beneath the headline Sutton Slay DA’s Underage Son Attended the Party!, that was for me to know and Kelsey never to find out.

So, I just shook my head.

He moved on for the door just as my dad arrived back.

“What did he want?” my dad said, watching Kelsey walk away. “Don’t tell me you told him anything.”

“Dad, come on,” I said. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“As you’re one of my crazy sons, I’ll have to take the Fifth on that one. You want that wrapped up?” he said, taking out his wallet.

“No, thanks. What now?” I said.

“Put your coat on,” he said. “The jury’s back.”



31

We came in through the rear entrance of the courthouse to avoid all the press.

Jimmy, the not-so-jolly giant court officer, was there in the back corridor sipping a coffee and I gave him a wink as we went past.

We were some of the first ones back, so I was able to score a front-row seat near the left-hand wall.

Hailey Sutton returned with her lawyers in tow a moment later. I guess I must have been gaping at her there in the empty courtroom or maybe she just caught the family resemblance to my dad because as she went past, she gave me one holy hell of a dirty look.

The room quickly filled back up, and then the judge appeared. I felt like I was going to explode five minutes later as the jury door opened but no one appeared even after a minute.