After Anna(89)
On Wednesday after dinner, Anna said she was going over to Samantha’s, driving the Range Rover alone for the first time. Maggie didn’t love the idea, but let her go and sat by herself in the family room with a novel open on her lap and the TV playing a Bravo Housewives reality show. Later, Maggie heard a car out front, assuming Anna was home in the Range Rover. She looked out the window, only to see a police cruiser parking in front of her house.
Maggie rose, alarmed. Anna was in an accident, she must have been in an accident, oh my God no, please no. She hurried to the front door, telling herself she was overreacting until she saw two policemen walking to her door. She knew from TV and movies that there was only one reason that police came to see you like that, but she couldn’t even hold that thought in her brain for very long, defaulting to a thousand possibilities. They must have the wrong house. They just want to tell me something. They’re collecting for that circus they do every year. They’re interviewing the neighbors. Maybe there’s a burglar in the neighborhood. It could be anything. Anna wasn’t in an accident. They could have the wrong house. It’s just some giant colossal mistake.
Maggie flung open the door. ‘Yes, hello, Officers.’
The policemen took off their caps, tucking them in the crooks of their arms. ‘Are you Mrs Ippoliti?’ asked the one officer, his voice gentle.
‘Yes, yes –’
‘We found your address on a temporary registration in a Range Rover, which is registered to one Anna Desroches. Do you know –’
‘Yes, that’s my daughter, is she okay?’ Maggie felt her throat constrict, she could barely get the words out. ‘She wasn’t in an accident, was she? Please tell me she’s okay. It’s a new car, and she hadn’t practiced –’
‘May we come in?’
Maggie gasped, this is really happening, and tears of fright sprang to her eyes. Somehow the police came in, and she sank onto the couch and the police asked if they could get her some water, but she shook her head no and tears spilled from her eyes before they could even tell her anything, and all she could keep saying, over and over, was I never should have let her buy the car, I never should have let her buy the car.
The police officers told her the unthinkable, that Anna had been murdered, that her body had been found at Noah’s, and that Noah had been taken in for questioning in the crime.
‘No, no, no!’ Maggie shouted, her thoughts flying. They were lying. Anna wasn’t dead. Noah didn’t kill her. There were so many lies in her life. This was the worst lie of all. It wasn’t true, it was a horrible, horrible lie. Her husband could never kill her own daughter. It wasn’t possible. How dare they.
Suddenly Maggie jumped up, seized the startled police officer by his arms, and started shaking him back and forth, a woman unhinged, desperate, out of her mind. His cap fell out from under his arm, and the other police officer intervened, trying to soothe and contain her, but Maggie flailed back, lashing out with her fists, but when they finally held her still, doubled over in tears, she emitted a scream she never heard coming from herself or any human, one so primal that Caleb had come racing downstairs wild-eyed.
‘Mag, Mag, what?’ Caleb screamed, already crying, stricken with fear.
‘Baby!’ Maggie cried out, to him, to Anna, to her tiny baby girl, it couldn’t be true, Anna couldn’t be dead, Noah couldn’t do such a thing, how could she tell Caleb that his father had killed Anna, it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t.
Maggie collapsed to the floor with Caleb, hugging him tight as they cried together, clinging to each other until the police officers finally left, shaken and disturbed.
Chapter Sixty-one
Noah, After
TRIAL, DAY 10
Noah faced front at counsel table, and the jury returned to the courtroom, entered the jury box, and filed into their seats. The foreman was carrying a piece of paper, the verdict slip. He handed the slip to Judge Gardner, who read it, then looked up.
‘Will the defendant please rise?’ asked the judge.
Noah stood up, his knees weak. His heart hammered. His mouth had gone dry. He was in a waking nightmare. He was about to hear the jury’s verdict for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Judge Gardner peered at the spectators. ‘Ladies and gentlemen in the gallery, members of the media, I admonish you that there will be no outbursts, conversation, or discussion of any kind after I read this verdict. I will hold anyone who violates this order in contempt. In addition, please remain in your seats after the verdict is read. You may not leave your seats until I adjourn Court and we are no longer in session.’
Noah felt pressure building in his jaw. He clenched and unclenched it, but it didn’t help. It had been a long trial and an even longer incarceration, and earlier, he’d told himself that the verdict didn’t matter because he’d already lost everything he loved. Now, he realized he’d been wrong. In fact, the opposite was true. The verdict mattered more than anything else. His life was on the line, right this minute, and for him, time stood still.
Judge Gardner cleared his throat, reading from the slip, ‘We, the jury in the matter of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Noah Alderman, Docket Number 18-3277, find the defendant Dr Noah Alderman guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Anna Ippoliti Desroches.’
Noah reeled from the impact, as if he’d been hit by a truck. Thomas stood beside him, rock-solid. The courtroom fell deathly silent except for some coughing.