My witnesses take the stand one by one, and my case builds muscle. I handpicked the desperate—the people who have the most to lose if Leah loses, the retiree’s that will not see their pension, the young chemists who are just beginning to propel their careers.
Leah watches me through narrowed snake eyes as I carefully clip the strings of incrimination from around her. Sometimes I swear I see admiration there, too.
On my birthday, I am early to the courtroom because there are some things I want to go over before the trial starts. Caleb is sitting in his usual spot without Leah.
“Happy Birthday,” he says as I snap open my briefcase.
“I’m surprised you remembered,” I say, not looking at him.
“Why is that?”
“Oh, you’ve just been forgetting an awful lot of things over the last couple of years.”
“I never forgot you,” he says, and it looks as if he’s about to say something else, but then the prosecutor walks in and he clamps his mouth shut.
By week nine of the trial, I have called seven witnesses to the stand. Out of the thirty employees who worked under my client to formulate Prenavene, only seven are willing to come forward and testify on her behalf. Of those seven, are three whose loyalties to her are unwavering and four I manipulated onto the stand.
I take what I can get and spin their testimonies to my advantage. When the prosecutor places his witnesses on the stand, I discredit them. A woman has lost her husband to a heart attack, brought on by the premature launching of Prenavene. I showcase her husband’s pre-existing heart condition and his unhealthy diet. A Veteran has hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical bills due to his treatment, after the drug ate through his liver and he needed a transplant. I bring to light his alcohol addiction which destroyed his liver long before Prenavene had a go at it.
We paste the weight of the blame onto her father, who cannot suffer the consequences from his grave. It grieves her to do this, to tarnish his name, but I remind her that if he were alive, he would be sitting where she is and would have gladly taken the fall for his little girl.
Leah takes the stand last. We contemplate not putting her up there at all, but decide it necessary for the jury to hear her sweet voice and look into her terrified eyes. She plays vulnerable well.
“Were you aware, when you signed the release forms, Mrs. Smith, that it was not Prenavene that was handed over to the FDA, but in fact it’s non-generic version-Paxcilvan?” I stand slightly to her left, my eyes reminding her to remember how to answer the questions, which we had rehearsed a dozen times.
“No, I was not.” She raises a pink tissue to her inflamed nostrils and blows gently. I look at the jury out of the corner of my eye. They are watching her carefully, probably wondering if she was capable of such deceit—this delicate girl in her lavender dress. I remember the time in my apartment when she was blowing smoke from her crimson lips, her eyes lined in black kohl. She is capable, I tell them in my mind, of that and so much more.
“What did your father, the late Mr. Smith,” I say looking at the jury, “tell you that you were signing?”
“Releases,” she admits weakly.
“And did you read these releases before adding your signature to the page? Did you observe the results yourself in the lab?”
“No,” she looks at her lap and sniffles, “I trusted my father. If he needed my signature, I gave it to him without question.”
“Do you believe that your father was aware of the inaccurate results of the testing of the drug Prenavene that was in those documents?” This was it—the hard part. I see Leah struggling with herself, trying to coerce the words from her lips. It made it all the more believable to the jury, her hesitancy to badmouth her daddy.
“Yes, I think he was aware,” she says looking directly at me. Tears are pooling in her eyes. Cry them out, I will her with my mind, let them see how destroyed you are over this. Her tears gush down her cheeks and I see her again standing on my doorstep the night Caleb was at my apartment for dinner. Manipulation tears.
“Ms. Smith,” I say finally giving her a second to compose herself, “do you have anything to say to the families of the victims of this drug—the families who lost their loved ones due to the deceitful, careless behavior of OPI-gem?”
“Yes.” At this point she breaks down, hugging herself and sobbing, her tears dripping from her face into her lap. “I am so sorry. I am disgusted and deeply remorseful at the fact that I took part in their deaths. I would do anything to change what happened. I want them to know that I recognize that my apology is worthless, that it will never bring mothers and fathers and daughters and sons back, but that I will see their faces till the day I die. I am sorry,” her hands come up and cradle her face. Bravo.
I breathe a sigh of relief. She did it—she pulled it off.
“Thank you, Ms. Smith. That will be all Your Honor.”
The prosecutor cross-examines Leah next. She stands firm. She plays dumb so well. I silently applaud her wide-eyed terror.
When she walks down from the stand and takes her seat, our eyes meet in a knowingness that transcends a normal lawyer/client relationship. Did I lie okay? Her lashes ask me. Am I being soft enough to convince the jury? Her mouth pouts.
You are a gifted actress. I say with a flick of my eyes. And I hate you.
I turn in my seat to look at Caleb. He is looking at me and not his wife. He acknowledges the success with a tight lipped nod of his head.
We break from trial on the first of September. In the morning Leah’s verdict will be read. I am a mess. I am lounging around in my condo. It is dark outside and I can see a few twinkling boat lights creeping along the ocean’s surface. I haven’t washed my hair since yesterday and I am wearing sweats and an old t-shirt when the doorbell rings. Funny. Usually if I have a guest, the front desk will call up before opening the elevator. I plod to the door in my socks and open it without looking through the peephole which is a very bad habit. Caleb is standing in my doorway in a wrinkled suit, with a bottle of wine in one hand and a greasy bag of take-out in the other. I let him in without a word. I am not surprised, I am not mortified. I am Olivia and he is Caleb.