Innocent or Guilty?

“I can’t be sure because it’s not like I checked the time or anything, but probably between ten and fifteen minutes.”

“So, that would make it about two ten, two fifteen a.m.?”

“I’d say so, yes, sir,” Cole says with a sharp nod of his head, and I wonder where all this sudden deference has come from.

“And do you think the two parties involved could have arranged to meet in the woods?” Curtis asks.

“Objection,” Ethan’s attorney calls, jumping to attention, “calls for speculation on the witness’s part.”

“Sustained,” the judge intones, eyes on the prosecutor, “please keep to the facts, Mr Curtis.”

“Yes, Your Honor. My apologies.” He places his hand over his heart as he says this, false sincerity leeching from him, before turning back to Cole.

“Did you see either Mr Hall or Mr Washington come back out of the woods at all, Mr Sampson?”

“No, but I went back inside to the party not too long after that. Also, they were both heading in the same direction, towards Winward Road, so there’s no reason why either of them would’ve come back to Hillier Street.”

“And you yourself didn’t then enter the woods later that night? Or morning rather?”

“No, I live in the other direction, so I just walked back along my usual route.”

“Thank you, Mr Sampson. I have no further questions.”

I hold my breath as the judge asks Ethan’s defense attorney if he’d like to question the witness, but he declines, and I can’t help but release a sigh of relief as he does so. Just watching Cole up there, taking the stand against my brother sets my teeth on edge.

I hear the voice in my ear, sweet and slow like honey, feel hands against my skin, hot and frantic, the not-so-artful addition of pressure, a knee between my thighs, pushing them apart. I shut my eyes against the court room scene, trying to push the memory away and out, shame cascading through me as I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands forcing a new feeling. It’s just a memory I tell myself, it can’t hurt me here. It’s not Cole who’s on trial; it’s not even me. It’s Ethan. I open my eyes again, and Cole is gone from the witness box. He’s back in his spot across the aisle on the other side of the courtroom; like I’m here for the groom and he’s here for the bride. He’s safe back there though, and so am I. As long as he’s out of my eyeline I don’t have to see him and don’t have to think about him. I train my eyes again on the back of Ethan’s head, reminding myself why I’m here, and whose life, exactly, is on the line.

10. (#ulink_610d553f-c0df-5f9a-a187-2294b6401b60)

NOW (#ulink_610d553f-c0df-5f9a-a187-2294b6401b60)

“Olivia?” someone said. And even with the doubt and surprise lacing their voice, there was still something unmistakable, something achingly familiar about it.

Cole Sampson.

I turned around in my seat to see him standing there in coveralls, dark brown eyes full of confusion, arms full of empty crates.

“Hey, Cole,” I said, slipping on an old voice I barely recognized; bright, breezy, barely aware of herself.

Cole was having trouble keeping hold of his stack of crates while processing my presence in his brewery tap room, and Daniel jumped up just as the stack was about to fall, taking a few out of Cole’s arms, relieving his load. Cole’s gaze swerved to him quickly and he gave a nod of thanks just as Daniel said chirpily, “Let me help you out here, man.”

“Uh, thanks … thank you,” Cole said, clearly still wrapping his head around what was going on. “Olivia, what the hell are you doing here?”

Easy lies, little white ones used to lubricate awkward social situations, slid through my mind, a whole pantheon of them, but in the end I decided the truth was probably the easiest of all. “This is Kat Thomas, and Ray Mackenzie,” I said gesturing to them behind me, “they’re doing a podcast on my brother’s case.”

“Your brother’s case?” Cole said, eyes suddenly twice their normal size, “you mean Tyler’s murder, right? You couldn’t possibly be here to try and exonerate your brother.”

“Ethan didn’t kill Tyler, Cole. He’s serving a sentence he doesn’t deserve.”

Cole shook his head, his eyes not leaving mine. “Unbelievable. This is unbelievable. You’re unbelievable. Do you have any idea how long it’s taken people to get over his death, and now you’re coming back here to drag it all back up again. Morgan still gets nightmares, did you know that? She hasn’t been back in those woods since.”

“Morgan?” I said, summoning up a picture of Tyler’s pretty older sister.

“Yeah, we’re … we, uh –” Cole trailed off, his gaze finally pulling away from mine as he shifted from foot to foot.

“Oh. You’re together now. You and Morgan. Wow.”

“Who’s Morgan?” Daniel asked, and I was surprised to find him still there, standing next to me, his arms almost as full as Cole’s with empty crates. The tap room had dwindled down to me and Cole for a minute as I crashed my way through long lost memories, but Daniel’s voice brought me back to the present. Cole gave him a look that said he wasn’t going to bother answering his question and proceeded to clumsily retrieve the crates Daniel had previously taken from him. I only sat down again once Cole had left – without saying another word to any of us – and proceeded to tell the others who Morgan was.

“She older or younger?” Kat asked.

“Older. Just by a year. She took it hard,” I said.

“Well, her brother did die, Liv,” Daniel said in a low voice, as if he had to remind me.

“I’d like to talk to her,” Kat continued, “but I guess you’re not the best person to put me in touch with her.”

I shook my head, “I wouldn’t even know where to begin with Morgan. The same goes for pretty much everyone else in this town.”

Kat and Ray shared a look that was worth an entire sentence. “Yeah, I’m starting to pick up on that,” Kat said, “having you around might be more of a hindrance than a help.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked, and Kat gave me a quizzical look. “I mean, will it affect your decision on whether or not you do Ethan’s story for the next season?”

“Oh,” Kat said, taking a sip of her beer and then placing it carefully back on the table between us again. “We’re definitely doing Ethan’s case, don’t worry about that. I was just hoping you might be able to help grease the wheels a little bit, but it looks as though we’ll have to go with a different tactic. We’re obviously not about to record anything with Cole, so how about we go somewhere a bit quieter and get some intro stuff with you on tape, and then we can take it from there? We might find that it’s easier getting on with things with you back in Portland, but we may as well get an interview with you while you’re here, right?”

In some ways, this was exactly what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to be here, not really. I felt safest, and most myself in Portland, but I also didn’t want to just leave Kat and Ray here on their own, here where the story could be told any way they wanted, any way the town wanted it to be told. If they stayed here without me, I felt sure something would go wrong and the story would get mangled, led astray again, and Ethan would stay stuck in prison.

“Okay,” I said, nodding slowly, and taking a long pull on my beer so that when I put it back down, it was practically drained. “Can I just ask … what made you decide to definitely do Ethan’s story? You didn’t seem so sure back in Portland.”

Kat raised both her eyebrows at me, and then I watched as her whole face tightened into a strange grimace. “It’s hard to explain what draws us to a story and what doesn’t … it’s just a feeling, I guess? That something’s wrong? We can’t be sure what we’re going to find here, but the fact that we filed a request for the police files over a week ago, and we still haven’t got them … Well, that tells us there’s probably something in those files they don’t want us to see.”

I nodded, able to follow Kat’s logic. But really, all my attention was on the thought of those old police files. Of what was in them, of what they revealed, of what long held secrets they might hide inside.

Back at the B&B I watched as Ray set up the equipment, and Kat looked over her notes. I was starting to regret the beer: my brain felt on the verge of fuzzy, my blood a little too warm, and my heart was beating a little too loud, a little too fast. I swallowed, thinking of all the interview requests my family and I had refused ten years ago. What was I doing, agreeing to this? I licked my lips, so sure they were beginning to crack open, they felt so dry, and Kat silently handed me a large glass of water. I swallowed it down, almost desperately, and when I looked over to thank her, she smiled.

“It’s normal to be nervous, Olivia. Just take a few deep breaths and try to forget about the microphones.”

I looked pointedly at the microphone Ray was at that moment setting up in front of me, and Kat laughed. “Well, I did say try to forget.”

* * *

Extract from transcript of Season 3 Episode 1 of Shadow of a Doubt:

Ethan Hall: If I’d taken the plea, and pled guilty to manslaughter, I’d be getting out right about now. I think about that all the time.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t admit to killing someone when I hadn’t done it, not even accidentally.

It’s weird – how many people do you think have perjured themselves just to take a plea? To be sure of a lighter sentence? Our justice system is … it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. And I’m testament to that.