Chapter 15 - A Mother Takes the Stand
The trial began in late spring. The courtroom was smaller than I expected, the air too cold, the benches too hard. Stacey sat at the defense table wearing a navy suit and the face of a woman who had been wronged. She did not look at me when I entered.
The prosecutor showed the camera footage first. Then the jury heard Robert's recordings and saw the ledger entries, the bank transfers, and the forged property amendment. The forensic examiner explained how the video card had been preserved and authenticated. The medical examiner testified that Robert's head injury was consistent with striking the dock rail during a fall, but that the injury alone could not tell whether he had stumbled or been pushed.
Stacey's attorney asked whether I had been angry with Robert about the land. I said we had disagreed about money before, as married people sometimes do, but I had never wanted him harmed. He asked whether my memory had worsened since I began using a wheelchair. I told him arthritis had changed how I moved, not what I remembered.
"Isn't it possible that your grief has made you see a crime where there was only an accident?" he asked.
I looked at the jury. "I believed it was an accident for three years. I defended the people who are now accused of causing it. Grief didn't make me change my mind. Evidence did."
The prosecutor asked me to describe the night my son pushed me into the pond. I told them about the hand on the wheelchair, the cold water, and the words I heard from the shore.
"An accident. Just like your father."
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After I stepped down, the bailiff approached the judge with a note. The judge read it, then ordered a short recess.
The prosecutor came to Mara. Dean Mercer had agreed to testify, and he had brought a recording of a phone call Stacey believed she had deleted.
