Steven Womack - By Blood Written

And it had led to this.

District Attorney General Robert Collier’s closing argument lasted just over a half hour, and was strangely calm.

He summarized the prosecution’s case, faced its weaknesses squarely, countered the defense’s arguments and challenges as spin control and disseminating, and then, in the end, appealed to the jury’s basic common sense and humanity. He spoke of Sarah Denise Burnham and Allison May Matthews as if they were his own daughters, as if their loss had somehow become personal to him and should be just as personal to the twelve men and women who sat listening to him.

Then he thanked them for their service and sat down.

Talmadge stood up slowly and walked to the podium. He gazed at the jury a few moments, then began speaking. Taylor listened as he reminded the jury that it was the state’s case to prove the defendant guilty, and that in a case like this-a case where a man’s life as well as his liberty was at stake-the state had the highest obligation possible to prove beyond even the slightest shadow of a doubt that the defendant and the defendant alone could be the only person responsible for the crimes.

“And when you get right down to it,” Talmadge intoned soberly, “what does the state have? You can argue procedures and processes, hypotheses and theories, but in the end, what is there? A spot of blood in the trunk of a car that has been used by literally dozens of people, most of whom the police didn’t even question. Now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, with a man’s life at stake, is that enough? I don’t think so. You have a great responsibility here, and a great deal of pressure has been put upon you by the state to accept their theories without question. But I put before you, as citizens in a free society, that your real responsibility is to protect the rights of any individual who finds himself in the state’s sights. You are the one thing that stands between our democratic republic and a police state. As tragic as the deaths of these two young women are, the state has got the wrong person. It’s up to you to not compound a tragedy by doing further injustice. It’s up to you to say to the state: ‘No.

You haven’t done your job. You can’t do this. It’s not right and we won’t let you.’ My client’s fate and life is in your hands. Treat it as you would your own. And I, too, thank you for your service.”

As Talmadge sat down, a silence as heavy and as thick as fog descended on the room.

“General Collier,” Forsythe said after a moment, “do you have any rebuttal?”

“Just one quick comment, Your Honor,” Collier said, rising. He walked to the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, I only want to emphasize one last point, and that is that the bloodstains in the car are directly linked to Sarah and Allison, and the night they were murdered, as the evidence has clearly indicated, that car was in the sole possession of the defendant.”

Collier sat down. “Any motions before I begin the charge to the jury?” Forsythe asked.

Talmadge rose. “Your Honor, the defense moves for a directed verdict of acquittal.”

“Motion denied. Anything else?”

Talmadge shook his head. “No, Your Honor. Nothing at this time.”

He sat down as the words were coming out of his mouth, as if the last thing he expected was for the motion to be granted. Taylor sat there, watching, as the judge swiveled in his chair and faced the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “at this point in the trial, the evidence has been presented, and both the state and the defense have had the opportunity to summarize the points in their cases. It is now my responsibility to instruct you in the law and how you are to apply it in your deliberations …”

Taylor settled back as the judge droned on. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, silently. It was out of their hands now.

The judge’s charge lasted almost an hour, and then court was dismissed right before noon. The jury went straight into the deliberations room, their midday meal delivered by court officers.

Michael and Wes Talmadge, with the two younger lawyers, remained behind in the courtroom. Taylor walked over and stood next to them as they spoke in lowered, hushed voices.

“-just a waiting game now,” she heard Talmadge say.

Michael turned to Taylor, his eyes meeting hers, and cracked a slight smile. She found herself suddenly feeling sorry for him, despite everything, despite the scenes her imagination had created over the past weeks, the scenes that were even more horrible than the actual crime-scene photographs. If he had done the things they said he had done, and she was almost certain that he had, then hidden beneath the surface of this intelligent, driven, gifted, and even beautiful man was a monster.

And yet he seemed at that moment supremely human.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She had to think a moment on that. “I’m not sure. But we probably need to try and eat.”

Michael turned, faced Talmadge. “What are our options?”

“The court clerk has my mobile number, so as soon as the jury is ready, she’ll call. We ought to try and go someplace quiet, someplace where we can be left alone.”

“Do you want to get a bite together?” Michael asked. “I mean, after this morning I’d understand-”

“We should stay close by each other,” Talmadge interrupted. Then he smiled, reached out and touched Michael’s arm. “And don’t worry about this morning. People say and do things in the heat and stress of a trial they sometimes don’t mean.”

“I appreciate that, Wes,” he said. “I really do.”

Carey walked down the hall toward them. “I’ve got the car out front in a loading zone. If we hurry, we can get out of here without drawing too much attention.”

Outside, they waded their way through the herd of media, dodging microphones and questions, and hurried away in the car. Carey drove like an expert, weaving in and out of traffic, skating across two lanes of oncoming traffic and disappearing down a side street. They drove a few blocks into North Nashville into an area called Germantown, an older section of the city that had become trendy and fashionable over the past decade. Nestled in an old building across from a Catholic church was a small restaurant, dark and intimate inside, with exposed brick walls and an open fireplace in the middle of the room. Talmadge had arranged a table at the back of the restaurant, tucked away in a corner where they could eat unnoticed.

Taylor ordered a glass of wine and a bowl of French onion soup. The men all ordered drinks and steaks, as if celebrat-ing the victory they had yet to win. Or perhaps it was the liberating sense of it all being over, out of their hands. Taylor didn’t know, but she found her own spirits buoyed by the conversation and the wine. She ate the soup, marveling at the fact that her sense of taste had come back.

Only rarely did anyone make reference to the trial. “How long will the jury take?” Michael asked at one point.

“It’s impossible to tell,” Talmadge said.

“The usual expectation,” Mark Hoffman said, jumping into the conversation probably as a result of his second bourbon on the rocks, “is that if they come back quick in a criminal trial, that’s often bad news for the defendant. If deliberations take a long time, that means it’s up in the air, anybody’s game.”

Talmadge looked down at his watch. “They’ve already been in over an hour. That probably means they’ve had time to eat lunch and take a preliminary poll. If we don’t hear anything in the next half hour, then we know they weren’t unanimous.”

Taylor, on the back side of the table, next to Michael, her back to the exposed brick, picked up her wineglass, finished the last of the Merlot, and signaled for another. Taylor almost never drank during the day, but this was one day when it simply felt right.