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 verdictmattered 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 ofCommonwealth 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.
Judge Gardner set the verdict slip down. “Dr. Alderman, would you like to make a brief statement?”
Noah hadn’t discussed that with Thomas, so he was on his own. “Yes, Your Honor, I would,” he answered, finding his voice.
“Please do so, Dr. Alderman.”
“I didn’t kill Anna,” Noah stated simply. He said it for Maggie. She wasn’t here, but she would read it in the newspapers. His beloved audience of one.
He would never know if she believed him, but it was the truth.
Chapter Sixty-two
Maggie, After
That very night, Maggie and Kathy left in stricken silence for the county morgue, after leaving a heartbroken Caleb with Kathy’s husband, Steve. Kathy did the driving, and Maggie kept all of the possibilities alive in her mind because she wouldn’t believe that Anna was dead until she had seen her body.There could have been some mistake, there must have been some mistake, a giant and colossal mistake, it happens in the world, it could be somebody else’s daughter, not my daughter, though it shouldn’t be anybody’s daughter, a life ended at seventeen.
The sight of Anna’s body reduced Maggie to her knees. Her only daughter was gone, her skin gray and cold, her eyes closed, and her body covered by a sheet. One of the morgue employees had saidstrangulation,and Maggie almost fainted on the spot, though she didn’t need to be told. Purplish bruises encircled Anna’s neck, a sight so grotesque that Maggie could barely look. An odd darkness covered the back of Anna’s neck and shoulders, which Maggie realized was her daughter’s lifeblood, pooling inside her very body.
Maggie felt an uncontrollable fury aflame inside her, a rising rage that Noah had done this to her baby girl, her only one. She covered her mouth not to cry out, but sobbed against Kathy, new tears of agony and grief. She couldn’t do anything to get Anna back. Shecouldn’t understand what had happened. She’d hadn’t dreamed Noah was capable of such violence, such cruelty.
Maggie let Kathy guide her from the morgue and back home, and after that, Kathy had practically moved in, taking care of Maggie and Caleb and fending off reporters. Noah was charged with murder the next day, and Caleb kept asking for his father and crying. Maggie tried to explain everything to him, then let him stay home from school. She didn’t want him bullied, now that their family was in the papers,LOCAL DOC CHARGED IN MURDER.
Kathy babysat while Maggie made Anna’s funeral arrangements, chose the casket, the flowers, and Anna’s boho dress for her to be buried in. They held a brief memorial service at the funeral home, and Maggie and Caleb sat in the front row next to Kathy and her family. Behind them were their circle of friends, who had just been at the barbecue, stunned and stricken by the unthinkable turn of events. A pastor gave a generic eulogy, but Maggie crawled into a mental shell to avoid feeling the worst pain of her life.
At the end of the service, a woman in a navy-blue dress approached her. “Excuse me, are you Maggie Alderman?”
“Ippoliti,” Maggie corrected her, though she never had before.
