Things We Do in the Dark(95)

“You told her to go?” Duffy already knew all this, but she said it in a tone of disbelief. “You, her thirteen-year-old daughter, told your mother to go?”

“I was scared she would make things worse. She wasn’t thinking straight. She was stumbling around and crying and saying things.”

“What did she say?”

“Things like, ‘Oh God, what did I do, what did I do?’ I just felt like it would be easier to try and clean up without her there. She finally left.”

“And then what did you do?”

“I brought the garbage bag into Charles’s bedroom. The door was wide-open and the lights were all on…” Joey’s voice trails off.

Duffy gives her the tiniest nod of approval. “Tell us what you saw, Joelle,” she said softly.

“I saw Charles lying on the floor on his side. There was blood everywhere, but most of it was on the carpet where he was. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. He looked dead. I … I almost threw up…”

“That’s understandable. Go on.”

“I started picking up everything my mom left behind. Her purse was on the bedside table, and I found her lipstick in the bathroom by the sink. I didn’t know what to take, so I just took everything: the napkins, the forks, the wine bottle, her glass, which had her lipstick on it…”

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.