FiFty Fifty

Chapter Fourty Nine

EDDIE

For a trial lawyer, there are two words in the English language that terrify us more than any other. These two words stared back at me from my phone. They'd come through by text message seconds ago.
THEY'RE BACK.
The jury had been out for all of forty-eight minutes.
There's a lot you can do in forty-eight minutes.
But one thing you can't do in forty-eight minutes is come to a fair and
balanced verdict in the most complex murder trial in the history of New York City. That's not possible. The jury probably has a question to ask, I thought. This isn't the verdict.
It can't be.
But it was. Deep down, somewhere, I knew it. I dumped my coffee, turned back toward the courthouse.
Walked beneath the flapping, torn, faded stars and stripes that hung from the flagpole outside the court building. The raven protested my arrival.
So many had died. And perhaps more would die before the end. When I was a kid, growing up in a small, cold house in Brooklyn, my mom told me there was no such thing as monsters. The stories I'd read as a kid about monsters and witches and taking children away from their parents, into the forest, well, she said they were just fairy tales. There are no monsters, she said.
She was wrong.
The Criminal Court building elevators were old and painfully slow. They took me to my floor, I got out and walked the corridor to the court room, following everyone else inside. I took my seat at the defense table next to my client.
A hush fell as the jury filed in.
They had already given the paperwork to the clerk. Paperwork they'd completed in the jury room. My client tried to say something, but I didn't hear her clearly. I couldn't. Blood roared in my ears.
I was a pretty good judge of which way a jury would fall. I could call it. And I was right, every single damn time.
This was the first verdict that I couldn't call. I was too close to it. In my mind, it was an even split. The verdict may as well come down to a coin toss. A fifty-
 
fifty. I knew what I wanted to happen. I now knew who the killer was. I just didn't know if the jury would see it. I was jury blind.
The clerk stood and addressed the jury foreman. A tall man, with a plaid shirt and rough hands.
'In these matters, have you reached verdicts upon which you are all agreed?' asked the clerk.
'We have,' said the jury foreman.
The clerk said, 'In the matter of the People versus Sofia Avellino, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?'
The foreman looked straight ahead. Not a good sign. Usually if the jury is going to acquit they look at the defendant – they're waiting to watch that tsunami of relief wash over the innocent defendant. It's what makes justice great. It's power.
I hung my head. I couldn't look. Harry grabbed my shoulder, I could feel his tension in his grip.
Not a single noise could be heard. Not even a breath. The courtroom was a tomb. And I had a creeping dread that Sofia would be buried in it.
The foreman cleared his throat, and when he spoke, he sounded like he was shouting from the rooftops, far above my head.
'Not guilty.'
A rumble of noise, building. Sofia grasped my arm and cried out. It sounded both human and animalistic. A grunt of pain and relief, like a thorn being pulled from flesh.
'In the matter of the People versus Alexandra Avellino, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?'
No pause this time. No hesitation of any kind.
'Guilty.'
There was no quelling the noise now. The guttural sound that came from
Alexandra's throat was the opposite of Sofia's. There was no relief, just pain and anger. Her hands flew from her sides and Kate tried to calm her.
There was no way to quiet this courtroom. The gallery erupted in chatter, and it was all Judge Stone could do to tell Kate that her client would be sentenced at a later date, before he discharged the jury, revoked Alexandra's bail and adjourned the court.
Dreyer was still pumping his fist, a grin of angry satisfaction on his face as the court security guards approached Alexandra with a set of cuffs. She recoiled, yelling, 'No, no, no, they got it wrong, it was my sister!'
They held her down, cuffed her and took her away, Kate following behind them. Before they disappeared through the side door, Kate turned, saw me, gave

me a thumbs-up. It was bittersweet for Kate. She'd backed the wrong sister, and she knew it. And yet, she had done the right thing.
A large hand slapped me on the back.
'We did it, Eddie. We got her,' said Harry.
'I didn't know what that jury was going to do. I had no clue.'
'From the moment you exposed that journal, it was always going this way,' he
said.
'Really? I didn't think so. I just couldn't call it one way or the other. I got lost
in this one, somewhere along the way.'
'You haven't slept in a long time. I'm surprised you can still stand. It's okay,
you can't call the verdicts all of the time. Get some rest,' he said.
He sniffed, and followed Sofia as she was swallowed by the crowd. The reporters were barking questions at her, a melee of noise and camera flashes. Dreyer was besieged by reporters too. He put on that hellish, triumphant look
and thanked his team.
I pushed through the edge of the crowd, kept my head down and made for the
door. It was over. The killer was in custody. Sofia was free. Justice, if there was such a thing, rarely saw its reflection in a verdict. Justice is not about right and wrong. People make mistakes. Criminals and jurors alike. Verdicts are often flawed because people are flawed. This verdict was right, and as I left the courthouse I stared up at the stars and stripes, and felt that maybe they weren't in such bad shape after all. I needed to get back to my office.
I wanted to sleep until next year.