Michael Connelly - The Reversal

And now Sarah Gleason would be the prosecution’s final witness. Through her the case would come together in the emotional crescendo I was counting on. One sister standing for a long-lost sister. I leaned back in my seat to watch my ex-wife-the best prosecutor I had ever encountered-take us home.

Gleason was sworn in and then took her seat on the stand. She was small and required the microphone to be lowered by the courtroom deputy. Maggie cleared her voice and began.

“Good morning, Ms. Gleason. How are you today?”

“I’m doing pretty good.”

“Can you please tell the jury a little bit about yourself?”

“Um, I’m thirty-seven years old. Not married. I live in Port Townsend, Washington, and I’ve been there about seven years now.”

“What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a glass artist.”

“And what was your relationship to Melissa Landy?”

“She was my younger sister.”

“How much younger was she than you?”

“Thirteen months.”

Maggie put a photograph of the two sisters up on the overhead screen as a prosecution exhibit. It showed two smiling girls standing in front of a Christmas tree.

“Can you identify this photo?”

“That was me and Melissa at the last Christmas. Right before she was taken.”

“So that would be Christmas nineteen eighty-five?”

“Yes.”

“I notice that she and you are about the same size.”

“Yes, she wasn’t really my little sister anymore. She had caught up to me.”

“Did you share the same clothes?”

“We shared some things but we also had our favorite things that we didn’t share. That could cause a fight.”

She smiled and Maggie nodded that she understood.

“Now, you said she was taken. Were you referring to February sixteenth of the following year, the date of your sister’s abduction and murder?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Okay, Sarah, I know it will be difficult for you but I would like you to tell the jury what you saw and did on that day.”

Gleason nodded as if steeling herself for what was ahead. I checked the jury and saw every eye holding on her. I then turned and glanced at the defense table and locked eyes with Jessup. I did not look away. I held his defiant stare and tried to send back my own message. That two women-one asking the questions, the other answering them-were going to take him down.

Finally, it was Jessup who looked away.

“Well, it was a Sunday,” Gleason said. “We were going to go to church. My whole family. Melissa and I were in our dresses so my mother told us to go out front.”

“Why couldn’t you use the backyard?”

“My stepfather was building a pool and there was a lot of mud in the back and a big hole. My mother was worried we might fall down and get our dresses dirty.”

“So you went out to the front yard.”

“Yes.”

“And where were your parents at this time, Sarah?”

“My mother was still upstairs getting ready and my stepfather was in the TV room. He was watching sports.”

“Where was the TV room in the house?”

“In the back next to the kitchen.”

“Okay, Sarah, I am going to show you a photo called ‘People’s prosecution exhibit eleven.’ Is this the front of the house where you lived on Windsor Boulevard?”

All eyes went to the overhead screen. The yellow-brick house spread across the screen. It was a long shot from the street, showing a deep front yard with ten-foot hedges running down both sides. There was a front porch that ran the width of the house and that was largely hidden behind ornamental vegetation. There was a paved walkway extending from the sidewalk, across the lawn and to the steps of the front porch. I had reviewed our photo exhibits several times in preparation for the trial. But for the first time, I noticed that the walkway had a crack running down the center of its entire length from sidewalk to front steps. It somehow seemed appropriate, considering what had happened at the home.

“Yes, that was our house.”

“Tell us what happened that day in the front yard, Sarah.”

“Well, we decided to play hide-and-seek while we waited for our parents. I was It first and I found Melissa hiding behind that bush on the right side of the porch.”

She pointed to the exhibit photo that was still on the screen. I realized we had forgotten to give Gleason the laser pointer we had prepared her testimony with. I quickly opened Maggie’s briefcase and found it. I stood and handed it to her. With the judge’s permission, she gave it to the witness.

“Okay, Sarah, could you use the laser to show us?” Maggie asked.

Gleason moved the red laser dot in a circle around a thick bush at the north corner of the front porch.

“So she hid there and you found her?”

“Yes, and then when it was her turn to be It, I decided to hide in the same spot because I didn’t think she would look there at first. When she was finished counting she came down the steps and stood in the middle of the yard.”

“You could see her from your hiding place?”

“Yes, through the bush I could see her. She was sort of turning in a half circle, looking for me.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, first I heard a truck go by and-”

“Let me just stop you right there, Sarah. You say you heard a truck. You didn’t see it?”

“No, not from where I was hiding.”

“How do you know that it was a truck?”

“It was very loud and heavy. I could feel it in the ground, like a little earthquake.”

“Okay, what happened after you heard the truck?”

“Suddenly I saw a man in the yard… and he went right up to my sister and grabbed her by her wrist.”

Gleason cast her eyes down and held her hands together on the dais in front of her seat.

“Sarah, did you know this man?”

“No, I did not.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“No, I had not.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Yes, I heard him say, ‘You have to come with me.’ And my sister said… she said, ‘Are you sure?’ And that was it. I think he said something else but I didn’t hear it. He led her away. To the street.”

“And you stayed in hiding?”

“Yes, I couldn’t… for some reason I couldn’t move. I couldn’t call for help, I couldn’t do anything. I was very scared.”

It was one of those solemn moments in the courtroom when there was absolute silence except for the voices of the prosecutor and the witness.

“Did you see or hear anything else, Sarah?”

“I heard a door close and then I heard the truck drive away.”

I saw the tears on Sarah Gleason’s cheeks. I thought the courtroom deputy had noticed as well because he took a box of tissues from a drawer in his desk and crossed the courtroom with them. But instead of taking them to Sarah he handed the box to juror number two, who had tears on her cheeks as well. This was okay with me. I wanted the tears to stay on Sarah’s face.

“Sarah, how long was it before you came out from behind the bush where you were hiding and told your parents that your sister had been taken?”

“I think it was less than a minute but it was too late. She was gone.”

The silence that followed that statement was the kind of void that lives can disappear into. Forever.

Maggie spent the next half hour walking Gleason through her memory of what came after. Her stepfather’s desperate 9-1-1 call to the police, the interview she gave to the detectives, and then the lineup she viewed from her bedroom window and her identifying Jason Jessup as the man she saw lead her sister away.

Maggie had to be very careful here. We had used sworn testimony of witnesses from the first trial. The record of that entire trial was available to Royce as well, and I knew without a doubt that he had his assistant counsel, who was sitting on the other side of Jessup, comparing everything Sarah Gleason was saying now with the testimony she gave at the first trial. If she changed one nuance of her story, Royce would be all over her on it during his cross-examination, using the discrepancy to try to cast her as a liar.