I am floored as we exit the judge’s chambers. I thought for sure Judge Gillespy would call a mistrial and our names would be leaked, our likenesses splashed across TMZ. Thankfully, she has shown us some mercy, even if it is for the benefit of the trial and not us.
There is one lingering thought—I have no idea how we were found out. Did Cam give us up after Damon’s condom request? Did one of the bailiffs see us sneaking around? Or was it someone I would have least expected to be paying attention? Gray Man perhaps? We may never find out, though it hardly matters now.
Damon and I head to the courtroom to join the others, stepping into the same elevator I saw him step out of at the start of all of this.
He presses the button to the fourth floor, and as we descend, the air in the elevator car grows immediately viscid. The idea that I cannot touch him, the stakes even higher than before, makes me want to tackle him to the floor of this elevator. He feels it, too. I know he does. He stands unnecessarily close to me, his forearm grazing mine, and I have to fight to ignore the growing flutter between my legs. He leans against the elevator wall, quiet and unreadable. When he doesn’t speak, I take the opportunity. “Maybe after,” I say in almost a whisper, and I lose myself entirely, joining him against the back wall.
“Maybe,” he says.
After this trial, after this deliberation, which will likely last only a few days at most, there is the potential of us. One where we can get to know the new versions of each other further, in the real world, without having to hide or sneak around. I know he warned me that he’s not capable, but perhaps he just doesn’t see it yet. Sure, there are complications outside, too, but my heart pinches at the prospect. As long as there is a small window of possibility, there is hope. My lust is replaced with the excitement of a potential future. That he might want it as much as I do.
Closing statements remind me of debate class in high school. D.A. Stern goes first, speaking for nearly an hour, the only reprieve about two-thirds of the way through, when Durrant Hammerstead“accidentally” knocks his water glass to the ground just as D.A. Stern begins talking of Margot’s assumed vitriol toward her late husband.
He lays out again the details of the prosecution’s case. That Margot had several reasons to want her husband gone, dead specifically. The multiple affairs. His full ownership of her successful business. His will, leaving everything to her. D.A. Stern outlines how the autopsy and toxicology reports did not point to a clear-cut natural cause of death. How the timing of Joe’s smoothie consumption that morning and subsequent time of death align to the window of affect given by the forensic toxicologist. How Margot “rushed” to cremate her dead husband’s body to destroy any potential evidence. He reiterates how Jackie Kitsch found three eye-drop bottles, hidden by Emblem. How evenshesuspected Margot, her own daughter-in-law and the mother of her grandchildren. He references that she could have easily had someone else do it for her—someone indebted to her—a clear nod to Ms. Pembrooke. He paints Margot as a manipulative mastermind, and having watched her for seven seasons ofAMOM, I can’t argue the mastermind part.
Margot stares on, tracking D.A. Stern as he strides, bouncing his pen between his fingers as he talks.
When it’s his turn, Durrant Hammerstead rises slowly, goes through his now expected laborious motions of adjusting himself to a stand. “Margot had ample time—years of affairs—to seek out ‘revenge’ if that were her mission,” he begins, gesturing his hands toward us. “She is not the first woman to be tied financially to her husband. You heard from our medical expert and even from the state’s medical examiner that Joe Kitsch’s death was caused by cardiac arrest. A tragic though natural occurrence. The likely result of genetics or lifestyle or age—not foul play. And let’s not forget, Margot has an alibi.” He says this last part as if ignoring it would be incredulous and irresponsible. He talks us through how Emblem very well could have collected those eye-drop bottles over several months and how being “disliked” (he glances at D.A. Stern as he says this—a clear reference to the onslaught of witnesses he brought forth to display their distaste for Margot) is not grounds for determining someone a murderer.
He tells us, just as he had in opening statements, that D.A. Stern must have provenbeyond a reasonable doubtthat Margot was responsible for Joe’s death in order for us to find her guilty. “And what we have here, at the end of this trial, is an abundance of reasonable doubt,” he tells us sharply.
I study the other jurors when he says this, though I don’t garner much from their neutral faces.
He does take one shot at D.A. Stern, saying, “I know it would be a career-maker for the D.A. to pin the Malibu Menace in the trial of the century.” He speaks with such taunt in his voice that it surprises me. I didn’t think Hammerstead had it in him. “But this case is not about D.A. Stern building his résumé. It’s about this woman’s life. Don’t lose sight of that as you deliberate.”
Sliding back into the Durrant Hammerstead we have seen throughout the trial, he ends his statement with “Remember: If she wasn’t there, a guilty verdict’s not fair,” in what I glean as an attempt at his own notorious “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” aphorism. It’s not his finest moment. He’s made the case in his closing arguments, though, that the prosecution has not clearly shown Margot killed Joe, directly or indirectly. Hell, they didn’t even prove that he was, in fact, murdered. But still, something nags at me. A cumbersome little voice that says this case is not as cut and dry as I’d like it to be.
Margot smiles gratefully at Durrant Hammerstead as he returns to the defense table, seemingly in agreement that he has laid his defense out well.
The end of the trial, and thus Margot’s fate, is looming. And we twelve jurors are about to determine the outcome.
41.
Jury Deliberations (n., phrase)
process during which members of a jury discuss and consider the evidence presented in a trial in order to reach a verdict
where karma’s gonna track you down
We step into the deliberation room, and it’s as though my pounding heart has been cut into two, each half shoved into one of my ears. I’m beyond anxious for what this conversation will hold. And after what transpired in Judge Gillespy’s chambers earlier, I’m more determined than ever to ensure fairness in deliberations. But the more I stew over the testimony and what I know of Margot, the more I worry that perhaps I was wrong for my steadfast belief in her innocence.
I look around the space where we will spend the next undetermined number of hours. Days, potentially. Now that the three alternates have been removed for deliberations, it feels a bit smaller in here. Just the core twelve remain. I’ve shared the past two weeks with these people. We’ve sat together through all the testimony, listened to the same words, seen the same faces, heard the same accusations. We’ve learned intimate details about Joe Kitsch’s life that strangers shouldn’t know about someone else. Hell, Damon aside, I’ve learned more about Tamra and Cam than I know about most people in my life. And now here we are, about to discuss whether we heard it all the same.
When we’ve all sat around the table, I realize we’ve shuffled in according to juror numbers like the well-trained civil servants we are,Damon to my left and to my right, Luis, whom I’m ashamed to admit I’ve exchanged barely more than nods and hellos, which I feel particularly terrible about now that the trial is sunsetting.
There’s a buzz in the room, a heightened energy as the power in this case has officially shifted to us. In this room, our thoughts, our opinions, and our voices matter.
When everyone is seated, Xavier is the first to speak. “According to the judge’s instructions, we should begin with introductions, then decide on a foreperson.” He clears his throat. “Right, so anyone care to go first on a formal introduction?”
Everyone looks around the room, avoiding eye contact like it’s the first day of school. We’ve been together for two weeks. We’ve all conversed at this point, some more than others, and so it seems rather pointless to introduce ourselves after sitting in the same jury box for eight hours a day—over eighty hours in total, which I calculated while contemplating my poor life choices in Judge Gillespy’s chambers just a few hours ago. But Xavier seems determined, his eyes still circling the room.
“I’ll start,” he offers when the room remains silent. He stands, which seems highly unnecessary, and I wish he hadn’t been the one to start because now standing is some precedent we will all have to follow.
Still rattled by Judge Gillespy’s scolding, I realize I’ve missed my opportunity to take the lead. I wanted to be foreperson, but I fear I’ve unconsciously stepped back from pushing for the role as the doubt about Margot began creeping in. And Margot’s account of what happened when she disappeared at sixteen—her uncannily similar description to one of Joe’s film plotlines—I can’t reconcile what it means. What it should mean, if anything, for this trial. I can’t bring it up here, though, because the connection between Margot’s testimony and Joe’s film was not made on the stand and is therefore not permissible in our deliberations. Part of me is relieved this can remain my own personal case complication that I’m not required to share with the others.
Can two weeks of questionable testimony undo seven years of knowledge? Taking on the role of foreperson is still my best chance to redeem myself, refocus on my goals here, I decide.
“I’m Xavier. Thirty-six. I live in Van Nuys, though from Saginaw, Michigan, originally.” He holds up his hand as a map of Michigan and points just below the indent between thumb and forefinger in what I know to be the standard Michigander greeting. “I’m a technology consultant. Married for eleven years to my husband, Lockwood, and we have two kids, Sienna and Corbin, twelve and six. And fun fact, I played Minor League Baseball for the Cubs until I tore my rotator cuff during a spring training game in Arizona in ’07.”
