might be culturally repugnant to either or both of them.
Sondra and I enter the foundation building. Willie is nowhere to be seen, so I tell Sondra to wait as I look for him. He turns out to be in the back, playing with one of the dogs that has kennel cough, a minor ailment but one that is contagious. Dogs that have it must be quarantined for seven days.
“Your assistant is here, Willie.”
He jumps up enthusiastically. “All right! There’s a lot to be done around here, man. Let me get my list.”
He hasn’t met Sondra yet, but he’s actually written down a list of tasks for her to do. “Hold off on the list, Willie. And go easy on her at the beginning, okay? Your personality can take a few decades to get used to.”
He doesn’t respond; I don’t think he’s heard me. He’s too busy rushing to meet his devoted servant.
Willie gets out there before I do, preventing me from making the formal introduction. The first thing I hear is Willie’s voice. “Sondra!”
“Willie! I can’t believe it!” she yells, not concealing her delight.
By the time I get in the room, they are hugging each other and laughing, and Willie is whirling her around. This introduction has gone somewhat better than I expected.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You two know each other.” My hope is that their relationship did not begin with Willie as a customer of hers.
“For a long damn time, man,” Willie says. Then, to Sondra, “How long has it been?”
“Too damn long,” she says.
I’m finally able to ascertain that “damn long” takes them back to high school. They actually dated in their junior year and shared many of the same friends.
“What you been doing?” Willie asks as I cringe.
“Hooking,” says Sondra, and Willie nods, as if she had just said, “Marketing.”
“And writin’ letters,” says Willie. “I really appreciated that. I should have called you when I got out.”
“That’s okay,” Sondra says. “You were busy.”
Willie, seeing I’m puzzled by the conversation, explains that Sondra wrote to him in prison, among other things telling him to hang in there, and that she knew he could never have committed such a crime.
I can’t remember when anything I’ve planned has gone as smoothly as this meeting. Willie starts showing Sondra around the place, so I leave, but there is no way they notice.
On the way out, I hear Willie ask Sondra, “You want a cup of coffee? We got every kind there is.”
• • • • •
“ROT IN HELL, you son of a bitch.” That’s the spray-painted message on my front curb as I take Tara out for her morning walk. It was done sometime during the night, no doubt timed to provide an inauspicious start for me on this, the first day of the trial.
It’s strangely unintimidating, maybe because the perpetrator felt he needed the cover of darkness, but more likely because of what has gone on these last few weeks. I have received over twenty death threats and at least a hundred hate messages, and their impact has lessened even as their anger and level of threat seemed to increase. Kevin and Laurie have both suggested my using Marcus as a bodyguard, but I’ve resisted doing so. Why, I’m not sure. It must be a guy thing.
The morning paper contains a piece written by Vince revealing that Daniel is his son. It is thoughtful, intelligent, and poignant and therefore will certainly not make a dent in the public consciousness. The angry voices out there are simply too loud for anything to be heard over them.
The trip to the courthouse is a further unnecessary tip-off on what is to come. It seems as if every person in New Jersey has shown up to either demonstrate or watch the others do so. The demonstrators seem to be peaceful, probably because they do not represent opposing points of view. Everybody has branded Daniel a killer, and his death will be the only acceptable outcome.
I’m able to reach the courtroom only because I have a special pass that lets my car through the barricades. Our defense team was provided with only two such passes, and Kevin is picking Laurie up on the way in.
Today is jury selection, and when I arrive, I see that enough prospective jurors have put down their anti-Daniel protest signs to fill the courtroom. Within a few minutes, everybody is present and in their seats. Daniel is brought in, and voir dire begins.
Every single one of the one hundred