If a Man Paints a Target on his Chest, He Should Expect That, Sooner or Later, Someone Will Loose an Arrow on Him.
George R. R. Martin, A Game of the Thrones
"Tell me a little more about how things changed after you and Joseph had your first sexual encounter. You were able to quickly earn more freedoms, am I correct?"
Of course he was correct. He wasn't going to ask a question that he didn't already know the answer to.
"Yeah. I still had to wear the cuffs, but he started letting me come out in the living room so I could watch some TV with him and Lily. Sometime I got to pick the show, and sometimes I didn't. When Joseph was home he would let me loose to go use the bathroom if I asked him, but Lily never did. I don't know if she had a key or not."
He was getting confused. When he told the story to me, Finn had never mentioned Joseph uncuffing him for the bathroom. When Mr. Robison had interviewed, I didn't think he had done it either. Having some freedoms had come later on.
Did it ever occur to you that Finn wasn't telling you the entire truth? I doubt that he was confused about what happened. He doesn't know some things, but those are exact dates, which seem to have been deliberately hidden from him. Just because Finn doesn't like to lie doesn't mean that he's incapable of it.
Point made. I liked to think that Finn wouldn't lie to me of all people, but I had to remember that our relationship was very new, and he was under an enormous amount of stress from all sides. I just prayed he didn't get caught.
"So you were treated more like a member of the family? Because watching TV together and letting you pick the shows sounds like something a family would do."
"I guess so." Finn was obviously thinking it out while he spoke. "I mean, yeah it kind of was and kind of wasn't. I was still chained up most of the time. When Joseph was at work, I was chained up all of the time. There was a piece of tape right outside the closet, and that was as far as the chain could reach. Lily would stand right on the other side and push my plate at me with a yardstick. It was like they were feeding a really mean dog who might bite."
Judging by the hurt in his voice, I think that was as upsetting and demoralizing to Finn as anything else that had happened. He hates it when people think badly of him, and to know that a woman was afraid of him for no reason other then his size was painful.
"What sorts of things did she feed you?"
"Well, at first it was just things like sandwiches and chips. Stuff you could throw on a plate and be done with. But the longer I stayed there, the nicer she was. She would ask me what I wanted to eat, and she would try to make it, even if it was expensive or hard."
"What about snacks? Did she buy you the snacks that you liked or wanted?" He was leading Finn around again and, just like before, Finn stumbled right into the expertly laid trap.
"She got me Doritos and Coke when I asked for them. Joseph had Pepsi in the house, which was ok, but I like Coke better. So, yeah, she got me special snacks."
"Sounds like Lily was pretty nice to you. Much nicer then I would expect for a woman holding someone prisoner." He wasn't going to ask questions, because he didn't need to. Right now, he was just making sure that the jury picked up on the smallest inconsistencies in Finn's story.
"Yeah, she was nice to me a lot of the time. I never said that she was nasty to me all the time." He was still faltering, but not as badly as he had been before.
"Was Joseph nice to you as well?"
Finn furrowed his brow, thinking hard. "Yes and no. He kept doing sex things to me, even though I didn't like it and he knew it. But when he was home he would let me walk around and check out the house. The alarm was always on, so I knew better then to try and run, but at least I could stretch my legs."
"He helped you work on some home projects, too, isn't that right, Finn?"
"Yeah, but that came later. All of the other stuff came after he raped me."
Breaths were sucked in all over the courtroom, including my own. Never once would I have thought that Finn would just come out and use the R word like that. He always danced around it, even when it was just him and I talking. To be able to say 'rape' in public, especially in a crowded courtroom was an enormous leap forward for him.
Or just a leap off of a cliff.
That was possible too, but I was going to try and be positive. I tried to catch his eye again, and this time we were able to make contact. He was still tense, but the panicked look was slowly bleeding out of him.
Even the lawyer was thrown off, but he recovered quickly. "I didn't intend to address the alleged rape until a bit later, but we can certainly discuss it now if you would rather. Finn, do you understand what 'alleged' means?"
"Yeah. It means that I'm saying it happened, and you're saying it didn't. Now we're both supposed to try and prove that we're telling the truth." We had all gone over the technical terms until Finn knew them by heart. It was small, but at least it was something we could do to help him out.
"Good. Can you describe what happened that day?"
Finn looked down. "Joseph was really nice to me. Extra, extra nice. He let me keep the handcuffs off all day long, and just walk around and look at stuff. I even got to pick out some R rated movies to watch. He tried to give me beer with lunch, but I only drank one of them."
"Remind me how old you were, Finn?"
"I'm not sure. 16 or 17. There weren't any colanders or anything, so I never knew what day it was. I had my birthday while I was there, but I didn't realize it until I came home. I missed turning 17."
"But you knew that you were less then 21, correct? So it wasn't legal for you to be drinking alcohol, even one beer."
"Yeah, I know. But there were enough illegal things happening that I figured it didn't really matter."
Of course that led to another objection, and much arguing, finishing with Finn being admonished again and the remark stricken from the record. Finn stared blankly at the judge, but his voice was totally agreeable and apologetic. It was also fake, but I don't think that anyone but me would have picked up on that.
"Getting back to the topic at hand, this sounds very typical of someone who is trying to impress a potential lover. Extra treats, more effort. Did you know what he wanted to have sex with you?"
"He didn't come out and say it, but yeah, I knew that that w as what he wanted. It was pretty obvious. I used…I used to do the same thing when I was trying to impress my girlfriend."
Nice one, Finn. Not only had he answered the question, but he had managed to slip in a reference to the girlfriends he had dated and liked. Why would a good-looking teenage boy with a string of girlfriends decide he suddenly wanted an average middle aged man to have sex with?
"Did you tell him you didn't want to?"
"Not right then, but I did when we were up in his bedroom. First I told him that I didn't want to, and that I didn't like boys in that sort of way, but he didn't listen. He said that if I didn't like boys, why was I doing all of that other stuff with him?"
That was a misstep, and it was immediately pounced on. "That seems like a fair question to me. You've already told us that you weren't telling him no when he wanted to do things."
"The fact that I never made the first move is something. Or that he had to push me up the stairs every single time. He never asked me if I wanted to. He just told me that I was going to do it."
"How was he supposed to be able to tell the difference between an inexperienced teenage boy who was a little nervous, and someone who genuinely didn't want to be there?"
"The crying might have been a clue." He didn't even sound sarcastic, just sad.
"Nerves can present in many different ways. But tell me what else the two of you talked about."
"I tried to tell him no again, but he wasn't listening. I said that I wasn't ready and that I felt sick, but he said he had already waited long enough and he wasn't going to wait any more." He looked everywhere but at us. "When we got upstairs I took my clothes off, but I was too scared to get on the bed. So he grabbed my arm and held it really tight."
While he spoke, Finn gestured at his upper arm. "There were bruises there later. Little round ones that looked like his fingers. He didn't yell at me, but he did get really mean. He said that it would either go nice or mean and that he could really hurt me if he wasn't careful. I knew what he meant, so I quit fighting him. I just closed my eyes and pretended that I was somewhere else."
"I know that you're tired, Finn, and you've been really patient with all of this. I just have a few more questions. I want to be 100% clear. Joseph did penetrate you with his penis?"
Finn's face flamed red. "Yeah."
"Did he injure you when he did so? I know you said that there was some pain, but there usually is with anal penetration, at least the first time. Tearing, bruising, bleeding? Any injuries at all?"
"No. I let him do it so he didn't do any of that." He sounded confused, as if he couldn't understand why this wasn't clear already.
"One last thing, Finn. Did you enjoy having sex with Joseph?"
"No! I hated it." Finn's eyes dashed to mine, begging me to get him out of this. Only I couldn't. I knew where this was going, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
"You did. Because I was under the impression that you were sexually aroused by the act. Didn't you get an erection from it?"
His face dropped. No matter how bad things got, I think that Finn thought he might end up escaping this part of the questioning. To have this discussed in front of everyone, especially Carole, was devastating. He nodded weakly.
Of course that wasn't good enough. Mr. Samuels had to push things. "I'm sorry, Finn, but I need a verbal yes or no answer."
"Yes." He said it fast.
"Did you have an orgasm?"
"No."
That may or may not have been a lie, but he didn't push it. "What happened afterwards?"
"I was crying and he left. Lily came up but I wouldn't talk to her either. After a while I decided that Joseph wasn't coming back so I put my clothes back on and went downstairs to my room. I just wanted the day to be over."
"Joseph came to see you then, didn't he? I believe you said that he apologized to you?"
"He said he was sorry if he scared me, because he didn't mean to. Then he gave me half of a baby monitor and said I could call him if I needed anything at night. That was new. Usually he just left me there all night and told me to use the bucket if I had to. He gave me a soda, too, so I wouldn't be thirsty."
"I see. Finn, I'm going to tell you what this sounds like to me. It sounds like you had been willing to do things with Joseph for a while. Oral sex, hand jobs. So he thinks that it's time to move on to actual intercourse. You were nervous, maybe didn't know how to tell him just how uncomfortable you were. So the intercourse happened, and you didn't like it. That's fair. I think that most of us have had the experience of sex not living up to the hype. If you were face down, he might not have realized what was happening right away. Once he did, he tried to comfort you, but you didn't want it. So he let you have some space, then made it up to you with extra treats and privileges. Am I right?"
It sounded so reasonable when he said it that way. No one likes to think of another human being as being a predator, especially not when they looked the way Joseph did. He didn't have crazy eyes or a hump. In fact, he could have been my own father, a resemblance that Finn saw as well. He was a middle aged white man, just lie a million other middle aged white men on this planet. You couldn't tell how disturbed he was just by looking.
"No, you aren't. He made me do the other things with him, and he made me have sex with him. Yeah, he was nice afterwards, but that doesn't change what happened." Finn didn't waver for a second.
"Finn, how many gay people, especially boys do you know of in your high school?"
"Umm….Kurt." He thought about it for a minute and nodded to himself. "Just Kurt for sure. There's probably a lot more, but he's the only one I know of. There's some girls, but I don't want to name names because that's mean."
"Kurt is your stepbrother, right?" He knew our family dynamics, but he had to lead up to the big moment.
"Not really. Mom and Burt aren't married. But they live together, so they might as well be. They'll probably get married as soon as Burt gets around to asking her."
Someone snickered and Dad turned bright red. Even Mr. Samuels smiled. "How do the other kids treat Kurt at school?"
He looked down. "Bad. They pick on him and call him names. Sometimes they mess with his stuff or beat up on him."
"Because he's gay?"
"Because he's gay and because he has a big mouth. He fights back and doesn't let them get him down." He smiled at me, and I had to smile back. So Finn had noticed that I didn't give up. The warm feelings it gave me didn't do much to dispel the sense of dread that was building in my gut. We all saw what was happening, but there was nothing to do about it.
"How do you think they would treat you if they found out you were gay?" There it was, the killing blow.
"I'm not gay. But if I was, they would probably treat me the same. Except maybe more getting my ass kicked, because I'm bigger. I think that sometimes they're afraid that if they get too rough with Kurt they'll kill him."
"So if you were gay in William McKinley High School, do you think it would be smart to hide that fact?"
"Probably." His eyes were serious.
"Lima isn't very big town Wouldn't is make more sense to go out of town or wait until college to come out of the closet? That way there would be a smaller chance of things getting back to people who may judge."
"Sure. That's probably why Kurt's the only one I know of. The other guys just don't want anyone to know."
"Isn't that what you did, Finn? You hitchhiked your way out of Lima and found someone to have those experiences with. If you had come back in a few days, or even a few weeks, it wouldn't have been a huge deal. But it got a little out of control, and you had to scramble to come up with a suitable excuse for what happened. Finn, you know what happened that night, and you know that you were a perfectly willing participant in everything that happened." He kept harping on that alternate version of what had happened, trying to cement it in the minds of the jury.
"I told you that I'm not gay. And I didn't want to be there. So I guess the answer is no for me."
"Let's talk about how little you wanted to be there. Tell me about the first time Joseph took you out of the house."
It was the weakest part of his testimony, and the part that could derail this entire thing. "It was a week or two after what happened. A bunch of days anyway. He said that since I had been so good to him the past few days, that he was going to be good to me, too. By the way, he raped me 4 more times before any of this, so he must not have been feeling too bad about pushing me."
He didn't even pause to let that sink in before he kept going. "He got me up pretty early one day, and made me sit down in the living room with him. Usually he didn't do that, so I was kind of freaked out by it. I thought I had done something wrong and that I was going to be in trouble. He said that he was going to let me go out for a ride with him and Lily, if I could behave myself. He asked if I wanted that and I told him I did."
Finn ran his fingers back and forth on the lectern. "He said he would take me, but I had to follow the rules. No talking, not even to him or Lily unless they asked me to, keep my hands on my knees the whole time. Don't move around at all, and don't try to get anyone's attention. He said that Lily would sit in the backseat with me, and have the Tasar and the gun. If I made anyone look at me, even by accident, he would use the gun on me."
"Was that what he said? That he would shoot you? I want you to try and think about his exact words to you, Finn."
What did it matter? They had threatened Finn's life, after taking the life of his best friend. Did semantics matter?
Of course they do. A play on semantics is always better then an outright lie, though I'm sure he'll have no problem with lying as well. One word can make or break a case, and he knows it.
"He said that if I got anyone's attention, he would kill me." Finn didn't have to think very hard.
"You're sure?" He wanted Finn to be clear, since I'm sure he was going to use it to make his point.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Have you ever said that to someone? What about your brother, Kurt? Have you ever threatened to kill him over something trivial? Not seriously, of course, but just to make a point about how important it was?"
Ouch. How many times had I playfully threatened to kill Mercedes over one of her fashion choices? Of told her that I could gladly kill Quinn or Rachel to get a better shot at Finn? Dozens. But had I ever meant it? No.
"No. I've never threatened to kill Kurt." Finn was playing dumb, but it wasn't going to work this time. "Not even when it was a game."
"What about other people? Your friends at school? Even Noah Puckerman himself?"
He knew better then to lie, especially when his words could be so easily discredited. We had all heard him threaten to kill Puck when the truth about Quinn's pregnancy came out. "I did say that to Puck."
"Would you have actually killed Noah? Did you kill Noah?"
"You know I didn't." For the moment, at least, the fight had gone out of him. He was losing this one and he knew it."
"You're admitting to me that you've threatened someone's life, but not in a serious manner. So why wouldn't you think that Joseph was saying the same thing. That he was telling you that he didn't want you jabbering away in his ear and distracting him from his driving. Didn't you already tell us that he liked to tease and joke around with you?"
"He liked to tease me, but not in a jokey way. He just liked to be mean. But, yeah, I've said that."
"I'm thinking that you were stressed out by what had happened in his bedroom, even though it was a simple miscommunication, so you were overly sensitive and took everything in a negative way. It's understandable, but that doesn't mean you were actually threatened."
Finn shook his head, but he didn't say anything. What was he supposed to say? So Mr. Samuels moved on. "Where did you go when you went out for a ride?"
"Lily put the Tasar-"
He was immediately cut off. "I'm not asking about Lily right now. We know that she was in the car with you and Joseph already. What I'm asking is where you drove to."
"McDonalds. But we drove around for a long time first. I didn't really get to see much when they were driving me in, so it was kind of interesting to see the desert." He squinted. "I don't think I would want to live there, though. Too hot and really flat."
"What did the three of you talk about while you were driving around?"
"I was too scared to even look out the window at first, but Joseph said I could and he wouldn't get mad. He pointed out some of the animals or told me about the plants. We started out in the middle of nowhere, and I saw some really big cactuses. I didn't think that I would ever get to see a huge one, so that was cool. Josephs and Lily talked a little bit about his work and when he would get a vacation next. I hoped that it was never, because I didn't want him at home all the time. Then Joseph said that I could pick somewhere to eat lunch, but that we were going to have to eat in the car, so be smart. I said McDonalds, mostly because I knew that he didn't like it. But he got it for me and supersized everything. Then he drove back to the middle of nowhere so we could all eat."
"Did Joseph go inside the restaurant, or did he use the drive-thru?"
"Drive-thru."
"Did you try and get help from the employee at the window?" He was still gentle.
"No."
"Did you scream or bang on the windows?"
"No."
"Did you try and jump out of the car and make a run for it at the restaurant?"
"No. I had already checked the door and the baby locks were on again."
"Did you try and roll down the window, or even break it?"
"No."
"What did you do?"
"I got my lunch." Finn wasn't attempting to be funny, but I had to giggle, along with several other people in the courtroom. It wasn't funny at all, but we had to do something with the tension that was steadily building up;.
"But you didn't make any efforts to escape from the Wrights, even though you were in the presence of other people. Any one of those people would have helped you if you needed it. At the very least, they would have called 911 and reported what had happened."
"The police aren't faster then a bullet. I really thought that he would kill me if I did anything that looked like I was trying to escape. Or even if he thought that I was trying. I didn't want to die like Puck did."
"So you're telling us that you were taken out in public by people who had kidnapped and tortured you, and you did absolutely nothing? That seems a little far fetched to me."
"It's true." Finn chewed on his lip nervously, trying not to cry. "I didn't think I could get away, so I didn't even try."
"Did you go home after you ate?"
"Yeah. We went right home."
"Something else changed after that, though. Tell us what changed for you after that day."
Finn went totally blank, obviously groping to figure out what he was talking about. Then he relaxed. "Oh. When we got home, he wanted a blow job of course, so I gave him one. But he didn't chain me back up after it happened. He and Lily watched TV, and I read my book. He wanted me to stay in the same room with them, but he let me sit on the floor instead of on the couch with them. When he asked me to stay, he was really nice and didn't just tell me I had to. They both left me alone for the rest of the evening. He chained me up at night for another few days, but that was the last time he chained me during the day. I could walk around and look at all the rooms of the house and even look out the windows. It was much better."
"So the relationship between you and Joseph was evolving all the time, and the trust between you two was growing as time went on."
"He trusted me more, yeah. I hadn't tried to run, and I hadn't tried to hurt him or Lily. So he trusted me, but I still didn't trust him at all. How could I?"
"I'm seeing from your previous testimony that Joseph took you out of the house several times over the next few weeks, correct?" Finn nodded uncertainly, looking over at me for help. I smiled at him, but I didn't know what to say or do. He was on his own. "Always the same thing? Everyone stayed in the car and you got food from a drive-thru?"
"Uh-huh. Oh, I guess sometimes we did pick-up from Olive Garden or Outback so it was a little fancier. Lily always sat in the back with me and held the Tasar on me so she could get me as soon as I tried something. But I didn't get to get out of the car until later."
He held up a hand. "We'll talk about that in just a minute. I want to try and keep things in chronological order here. Were you and Joseph still regularly having sexual relations? How often would you say that was happening?"
Finn winced. "Ummm….the actual sex or just anything to do with his junk?"
He was starting to get snippy. It was understandable, considering what he was being put though, but he needed to keep himself under control. This was make or break and there were no do-overs. "I was just talking about actual intercourse, but we can discuss both."
"Every morning I was supposed to go in their room and give him a wake-up call, which was what he called getting head. Lily would wake me up so I could go up there." He shrugged. "She was married to him, so I think she should have had to do it at least some of the time, but no one asked me. He didn't want to have sex every single day, but he did want to do it most of them." He wasn't looking at me any more. In fact, wasn't looking at anyone any more.
"Did he over offer to give you oral sex or let you top him?"
"No."
"Did you ever have an orgasm?"
"Yeah." He jutted out his jaw, shooting the man a death glare.
"So he took care to see that it was pleasurable for you as well." He took a quick look at Finn and feigned surprise. "You're shaking your head. Do you not agree with me."
"No. He did it, but not because he really cared about me. I think he knew that what he was doing was wrong, and it made him feel better if he thought I liked it and I was getting off, too. I don't think he really cared about me."
Good job. He had made his point and expressed himself clearly and without drama.
"Did the two of you talk about you feeling that way?"
"No. We never, ever, talked about it at all. He told me what to do and I didn't argue with him. If we were doing something else, like watching TV or fixing up the house, we did that. It was like we were living two different lives."
"So you never told him that you were uncomfortable with the sexual intercourse, but you expected that he would read your mind and know?"
Tears welled up in Finn's eyes. "I was afraid to. I thought that he might kill me if I made him mad or tried to fight."
"But he hadn't done anything to really hurt you, had he? Had he done anything to you that left a mark?"
"No. He made my mouth bleed a little bit, and he gave me some bruises from holding me to tight, but he never punched me or anything like that. But I knew that he would. I'm not stupid."
"How many girls have you had sex with?"
"One, and only one time. Oh, and Lily. So two."
"Let's forget Lily for now. Was the other girl your girlfriend from school?"
"She wasn't my girlfriend, but she was from school. Not really a friend, but we know each other, I guess."
"A casual hook-up, then. Do the two of you regret what having sex?"
"I regret it. I don't know about her." He didn't elaborate.
"I'm going to assume that you've seen this girl since. Have the two of you discussed what happened?"
"No, she kind of hates me now. Not because of the sex thing or anything, just because she kind of hates everyone."
I had to cover my mouth to keep from giggling. It was a pretty accurate description of Santana.
"It seems that you're holding my client to a rather high standard, then, one you weren't even holding yourself to. You didn't bother to figure out if she enjoyed what the two of you did. But you expect that Joseph would not only know that you disliked it, but know it with absolutely no clues."
"I….." Finn was caught off guard. "I, um…" He visibly shook himself. "I didn't want to do it with her again, and she didn't want to do it again, so I didn't think it mattered. If I wanted to do it again, I would have worried more."
It was a good answer. I just didn't know if it was good enough.
"You took her silence on the matter as assent for what was happening and you didn't bother to as her how it was afterwards? Sounds familiar."
"No, that's not true." Finn shook his head. "She was the one who asked me about doing it and she was happy when we did it."
"What about afterwards?"
"She asked me to take her for a hamburger and I did. So that was that." Again, he wasn't attempting to be funny, but a few people laughed. Wanting a snack instead of enjoying the afterglow sounded like Santana to me.
"Do you think she could have been trying to get out of there, like you claim you wanted to with Joseph?"
"I guess." Finn looked confused. "But I don't think so."
"Joseph might not have thought so, either."
"If Santana felt that way, then I was wrong. But if I was wrong, so was Joseph. I didn't do it on purpose, though, and he did."
"That's a matter of opinion. But we can move on if you like. I'd really like to talk about some of these outings that Joseph let you go on. Did Lily come with you every time?"
"She did at first. Then she started staying home."
"She did." He had Finn in his clutches and they both knew it. "When Lily wasn't along, who held the Tasar on you?"
"No one." His voice was thin.
"No one? What kept you from jumping out of the car?"
Finn shot him the classic blank look. "The baby locks on the door."
"What kept you from lunging at Joseph, knocking the drivers side door open and running for it? Most of his attention had to be on the road, so there's no reason you couldn't have done so."
"I don't know. I never even thought about it." He shook his head. "I was scared of him."
"Not scared enough to run. Tell everyone what happened at the gas station."
"He let me get out and get a drink." He was starting to mumble, which was a mistake.
"He let you get out and get a drink? So the two of you walked into the gas station together and bought something?" Finn nodded weakly. "So that was how you got loose, then? You took your chance and locked yourself in the bathroom, or ran behind the counter, or begged the employee or another customer for help, or just took off back across the road and outran him."
"No, I didn't do that." Finn shook his head. "I just got my drink and got back in the car."
"If you were so unhappy, and so afraid that Joseph would hurt or kill you, why didn't you escape at the first opportunity. Let's see, I count…" He actually ticked off on his fingers, a show for the jury. "-five different ways you could have helped yourself, and that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure that you would have been thinking about nothing else, so you should have had dozens of things you could have done. That is, if things were happening the way you claimed they were."
"I'm not lying. Joseph said that he would kill anyone I talked to. He said he had the gun along with him." He was trying so hard to keep himself under control.
"The gun, the gun, the gun. I keep hearing about this gun, but you know what, Finn? No one but you has ever seen this gun. Not anyone who knows my client, not the police who basically tore that house and property to shreds, and not my client himself. Do you know why that is? Because that gun? It doesn't exist. It's a fantasy that you made up to make yourself look better."
"No! That's a lie and you know it." Now he was angry, which was worse then the mumbling. "He had a gun, and he shot Puck with it, and I don't know where it is now, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You're a liar and so is he!"
"Objection!" But he was smug about it. He has pushed Finn into flipping out, which was exactly what he had wanted to happen.
There were flurried arguments, until the judge pointed both lawyers back to their places and addressed Finn directly. "Mr. Hudson, do you need a short break to compose yourself? I understand that this is difficult for you, and you've been on the stand for a long time."
"Yeah." Finn rubbed the back of his neck, a sure sign that he was stressed. "That would be good."
"I'm calling a 10 minute recess, during which time I want only Finn to leave the courtroom. I want to remind both sides that Finn is 17 years old, and a juvenile in the eyes of this court. I will not tolerate further badgering of a witness, much less a child. Go on, Finn, someone will help you. Get something to drink and be back in 10 minutes."
Finn nodded and stepped down and out a side door. To a casual observer, he probably looked fine, but I knew better. He was very green and very scared. And I could do nothing for him. We had been explicitly told to stay seated. Finn was on his own.
I clenched my hands together and tried not to think about it. To make the time pass a little faster I busied myself looking around. Most of the jurors were looking over their notes. None of them of them were speaking to each other, but maybe that was some sort of rule? I couldn't tell what any of them were thinking. Had Finn's outburst destroyed any confidence they had in him, or would it actually work in our favor? He had shown them a flash of what he was suffering, and that had to have made an impression.
Carole was clutching her purse so tightly that her knuckles were white. Dad looked sick, probably the same way I looked. I took Carole's purse out of her hands and rummaged until I found a powder compact. A quick movement had it flipped open so I could study the people behind us, specifically the reporters. They were all frantically scribbling notes, no doubt filtering out the best quotes to use for the evening news.
Well, Finn certainly gave them enough to work with. He's got to get that temper under control.
Yes, he did. The only reason Finn had gotten away with that latest outburst was because we had pulled a sympathetic judge. He was caught between child and adult, and another judge may well have let the questioning continue. But I had to get him through this trial first.
I turned the compact, looking at the rest of the people in the courtroom. True, they were only here as ghoulish spectators so they could get the inside scoop on what had happened, but they were more important then they thought. Once this trial was over, Joseph and Lily would hopefully be in jail, the lawyers would be trying other cases, and the judge would be presiding over some other trial. But these people would still be in Lima. They would be Finn's teachers, and his future bosses, and the people who would check him out in the grocery store. He would have to look at them day in and day out in the town where he had lived his entire life. That was tough, and I don't know if Finn realized it yet. They were mostly talking among themselves, and I had a feeling that everyone in town would know what had happened by dinner tonight.
The door creaked open and Finn stepped back inside. The short break had given him a chance to get himself under control and he looked much stronger and more confidant. He climbed back onto the stand and nodded. "I'm ready to keep going now."
"Alright. The break is over. Mr. Hudson, this is the last break you will get, and I want you to keep in mind that further outbursts will not be tolerated. I will also caution counsel to move on and not badger the witness."
Mr. Samuels waited until Finn was seated to speak again. "Finn, I'm sorry I upset you earlier and I want us to get back on track. There's just one more issue with these little outings that I want to address, and then we don't have to talk about them any more. I understand that you were able to go inside the gas station yourself a few times. Is that correct?"
"Three times." Finn nodded as he spoke. "I got to go in by myself three times."
"What did you do when you were allowed that freedom? When no one was threatening you, or holding a gun on you, or there to grab you if you tried to make a run for it?"
"Nothing. I wanted to ask the man behind the counter for help, but I couldn't. I even opened my mouth to ask him. I just couldn't make any noises come out. He remembered me from when I came in with Joseph and he was really nice and tried to talk to me, but I couldn't even look him in the eyes. I just froze."
"All three times? Three times on three separate days, and you couldn't do it even once? Did you talk to him before, when you came in with Joseph?"
"No. He told me not to talk to anyone." His lip gave a tiny quiver, but the rest of his face was still. "And, yeah, all three times."
"So what I'm seeing is another opportunity for you to escape from the people that you claim kidnapped and abused you, and you did nothing." He held up a hand and started ticking things off on his fingers. "Let's see. You stopped at multiple rest stops, gas stations, and restaurants on the way to New Mexico. You didn't try and get help. You were allowed free run of the Wright's house for a period of at least several weeks. You didn't try to break a window or bolt out the door. You were taken out of the house and allowed to go into a gas station with Joseph. You didn't make a run for it. You were even allowed to go into the gas station all by yourself on three separate occasions, and you didn't even ask someone for help. I'm counting six different opportunities right there, and that doesn't even get into the times that we haven't talked about. Do you see why we're all having a hard time believing your story?" He sounded sympathetic again.
Finn nodded. "Yeah, I can see why it sounds weird. And I really, really, fucked up by not doing anything. But I couldn't. I know that it's weird, but I couldn't talk, period. Talking was just like growing wings and flying home. Neither one of them was possible."
He was either employing a brilliant strategy or an incredibly foolish one. By admitting to his mistakes, and agreeing that his story wasn't perfect, he did make himself sound more believable. The only perfect stories are the lies. But would anyone actually hear that? Or would they just hear that Finn was admitting that he could have gotten away and hadn't?
"So nothing prevented your escape months earlier except your own failure to act? Doesn't sound like much of a hurdle to me."
Finn watched him in silence, waiting to see if he was actually expected to reply, or if the lawyer was just making a point. When it became clear that he was expected to say something, he shrugged. "I know that it doesn't sound like that to you. It doesn't sound like that to me right now either. But when it was in the moment, in New Mexico, it was impossible."
"I see. Well, it will be for the jury to decide what was and wasn't possible, now won't it?"
"I guess."
"I guess as well. What I want to talk about right now is the night the police came to the door. Where were you when they arrived?"
"The living room." There was no doubt in Finn's mind on that one. "We were watching a movie, and I was on the floor next to the couch. Joseph and Lily were both on the couch. It scared me when someone knocked, because no one ever came over to their house. Ever. It scared Joseph, too, because he jumped up and yanked me to my feet and drug me over to the closet and locked me inside. He said it was his friends and that he was going to share me with them so I better act right and be nice to them. Then he turned the light off and closed the door."
"And how did you interpret him saying that he would share you with them?"
"That he wanted me to have sex with them. Or let them have sex with me. Whatever they wanted, I was supposed to do."
"That's strange, because that's not what I'm hearing at all. Did Joseph say to you that he expected you to have sex with them? Because it sounds to me like he w as asking you to be polite and a gentleman in front of them. I don't think that wanting a houseguest to have manners is a bad thing."
"It's not, and I do have manners. But that's not what he meant. He always called having sex 'being nice'. So when he told me to be nice to his friends, he meant sex. Period."
"But that didn't happen, did it?"
"No. I sat there forever in the dark, and I finally went to sleep. I didn't wake up until they started fighting about me. The police had been at the door looking for me, and they were really rattled. Joseph said that they couldn't keep me any more, and they started blaming each other for them coming. They said that they had to get rid of me because the police would come back and I couldn't be there when they did. They even talked about killing me right then, but they thought I would fight back. So they said they would do it the next day."
"Did they ever say they would kill you? Think, Finn, did they actually use the words kill, shoot, murder, die, death, anything like that? 'Get rid of' can mean anything, including just taking you home, which, if I recall correctly, is exactly what happened."
Finn looked down and shook his head. "No, I didn't hear them say that. But you could tell by the way he said it that he meant kill me."
"What did you say to them?"
"Nothing. I was pretending to be asleep. After they went to bed, I tried really hard to get loose, and I even made the radiator shake really hard, but I couldn't get loose."
"And the next morning, things were a little different, weren't they? You were all quite busy."
"Joseph was busy doing nasty things with me, yeah. He said that he was playing hooky from work so we could have a fun day, but the only one having fun was him. He just wouldn't leave me alone."
"Was this when he made the video of you?"
"No. The video came after we went out to the desert."
Mr. Samuel's gave a quick smile. Finn was walking right into his hands. "But it was the same day, correct?"
"Yeah." It was a breathy squeak. Like a baby gazelle with a lion bearing down on it, he saw his doom and couldn't stop it.
"I'm going to show a little bit of the video right now."
"Objection!" Our lawyer's face was bright red. "Not only is it pornography, but it is pornography starring a minor child! The only reason for you to show it is to humiliate someone who isn't even on trial!"
The judge agreed. "That video will not be shown, period. This is a court of law, and I am not going to sit here and watch it be broken. Move on."
"Yes, your honor." He didn't sound particularly upset by it, but I'm sure that he didn't expect the video to be shown. He was just trying to pysch Finn out. Most troubling, he was succeeding. Finn was terrified. "I apologize, Finn. I'm going to jump ahead to them taking you out to the desert. You say that you were forced into the car, and Tasered yet again. How many times does that make total?"
"Three." Finn nodded dryly. "Three times."
"Three times total. Remind this court again what it is that you claimed saved your life?"
"When we got out there, there was a Boy Scout Troop camping, and Joseph flipped out. So he started the car back up and started driving around. He and Lily were fighting again. Then Lily said for him to just take me home, as in back to Lima home."
"What did Joseph say when she said that?"
Finn breathed out slowly. "He didn't like it. He said that she was fucking stupid, and that I would tell on them, but he couldn't think of anything better. I think he panicked."
"But he agreed to take you, didn't he? In fact, you guys started back for Lima that night." At Finn's cautious nod, he continued. "And you trusted him? You just told me that you thought he was about to kill you. But you still had faith in him and his words. I'm just not understanding what you mean."
"I had to trust him. Because if he wanted to kill me, he would. I got saved because of those Boy Scouts, not because of anything I did. If he tried again, I would die. So I h ad to believe that he was telling the truth. I could usually tell by that time anyway."
"How was this trip different from the trip to New Mexico?"
"I got to sit in the backseat by myself, and I go to go inside and eat and I didn't have to pee in a bottle. So it was better. We stopped at a truck stop and he had me take a shower and get rid of all my old clothes. He had brand new ones that were still in the bag."
He waited, but no questions were forthcoming. "When we got to Kurt's house, he pulled up, but he didn't open the door. He told me that if I talked to anyone about what happened, he would kill Burt, and rape and kill Mom, and then he would take Kurt and do everything to him that they had done to me and worse. So I did what he told me and counted to 10,000 before I went to the door and knocked. Joseph and Lily were already gone. They were gone as soon as I closed the car door."
"Who was home when you got there, Finn?"
"No one." He toyed with the side of the stand. "Kurt didn't come until the next morning, and Mom and Burt didn't come until the next day, after I was already at the hospital." His voice was hurt, even though it had been no ones fault.
"When Kurt came home, what did he do?"
"Took me to the hospital." He was getting a little confused again, but I wasn't surprised. He barely remembers the hospital, and is fuzzy on the week or two that followed. For the first time in four months, he had been able to fully relax and let someone else be the caretaker. "We both stayed there overnight, and then Mom and Burt came and took us home."
"And did you tell Kurt about everything that had happened, or did you wait until your parents were there? I'm sure that the police were summoned to the hospital and you wanted to get them going in the right direction as soon as possible. But I can see how you would want your mother there. After all, as the court has pointed out several times, you are still a child."
Finn still looked confused. "What was the question?"
"The question is how long it took for you to tell everyone about the Wright's and all the crimes you claim that they committed?"
"A while." Finn was obviously counting back, trying to remember how long it had actually been. 58 days. The number was burned into my brain, but he didn't even remember it. How was that possible?"
"A while? How long is a while? 8 hours? A day? A week? A month? I would think that you would want to get the police going in the right direction right away. Was something wrong?"
"I couldn't talk. Not just about the Wright's but at all. Every time I tried to open my mouth and say something, nothing happened. My throat just closed up and I couldn't even breathe. It was awful. I wanted to so bad, and I couldn't."
"What did you think would happen if you spoke up?" It was the question we had all asked him over and over, and his answer never varied.
It didn't this time either. "I would die." There was no drama or doubt in his voiced. Just the truth.
"What about other ways to communicate? Could you write a note, or type an email, or even use some sign language? I know that you can use it, because I saw you and your "brother" doing it in the hall." He actually used the finger quotes in the air like a teenager.
My blood boiled. There was no reason to emphasize the word brother like that except to make the jury think that there was a sexual relationship between us. There was, but, that had no bearing on this case. He was trying to play on the typical stereotype of a man who would fuck anything. If Finn was with me happily, why wouldn't he be with Joseph as well.
"Why did you say brother like that?" Finn was going for confused innocence instead of anger. "He's not my real brother yet, but we still call each other that. I mean, our parents are going to get married eventually."
Now he had put the lawyer in a bad position. If he pushed the matter, he was badgering again, not to mention revealing his ploy. If he didn't, he undid the scenario he had worked so hard to set up. Finn had outfoxed him, and I hoped knowing that would give him the confidence to finish this out. We were so close to the end.
"I apologize for my assumption, Finn. Blended families can be so confusing." He was taking the high road and backing down. "But my original question stands. Why didn't you communicate in some other way?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. My family kept asking and asking and I was afraid to tell them. I thought that Joseph would do exactly what he threatened to."
"How could he have done that from jail? If you had just given a name, he would be jailed, just like he is now, and you would be out of his reach. But you still did nothing. Were you feeling bad because you know that things didn't happen the way you said they did and you didn't know how to get out of the situation without making everyone mad. Were you guilty?"
"Yeah, but not because I was lying. I know it sounds stupid, but they were nice to me sometimes, especially Lily. If I told and they went to jail it would be all my fault, and I know that they were wrong and they need to be punished but I just…I wanted someone else to have to do the hard parts. Because I hate having to know that I put someone in jail and I have that power over the rest of their lives, even if they deserve it." Tears welled up and ran down his face, but he made no move to wipe them away. "It sucks." His voice broke at the end.
Trust Finn to have sympathy for the devil. Even though I had no mixed feeling at all, and would gladly believe in a hell just so he could burn in it, my heart still broke for his suffering.
"I see. It still strikes me as very strange that you can be so afraid of a man that you can't even speak, even though he's 1500 miles away, and yet you still don't want to be the one to put him in jail. Something just doesn't jive here."
"I know. Sometimes your feeling are really stupid, but they're still there." He wiped his eyes with the handkerchief I had given him. "It's the truth, no matter what."
"What changed that you suddenly decided to talk again?"
"Everyone kept pushing me and pushing me and trying to make me talk. The only one who didn't do it was Kurt. He taught me how to sign and he didn't talk to me all slow like I was stupid because he knew that I wasn't. One night I woke up in the middle of the night, and I knew that I could talk to him, so I did and nothing bad happened. Once I could talk to him, I knew that I could talk to everyone else. And I could."
"Finn, are you currently seeing a therapist?" The question came out of nowhere and with the sole intention of throwing Finn off.
"Yes. I go every week."
"Are you taking any sort of psychiatric medication right now?" He was pulling out his very last stops to make people disbelieve Finn. After all, who would believe someone who was admitting to showing serious emotional issues.
"I take Xanax twice a day. Low dose." He said it calmly and without shame. Good for him.
"I see. So would you describe yourself as mentally stable right now?"
"Yeah. I passed the 10th grade, even though I didn't get to finish it, and I'm getting all A's and B's in the 11th. I'm still doing Glee, and I'm really good at it. I have friends. I'm doing pretty good. I mean, I'm doing pretty well." He smiled a little.
"Do you have any mental health diagnosis's?"
"No." He shook his head.
"Are you currently pursuing a diagnosis?"
"No." Wisely he didn't say anything else. The diagnosis would be pursued once everything died down with the trial, and we could get a clearer picture of what Finn's day to day functioning was.
"Finn, have you told me any lies today? I want you to think long and hard before you answer. Remember that your words could be what sends a man to the electric chair. I know that coming out to your family and admitting your mistakes is hard, but I want you to do the right thing."
"I am doing the right thing, and I haven't lied. Everything I've said today has been the truth."
"Do you understand that I have the right to recall you to the stand later in the trial, and that you may have to repeat parts of your testimony? Are you sure that you're going to be able to remember the story you've told?"
"Of course. I know what happened, and that's what I told you." He knew that it was almost over, and all he had to do was hang on a little longer.
"Is there anything else you want to tell us about what happened?"
I'm sure that there are many things that Finn wanted to say, but he didn't. Anything he tried would be twisted around and used against him. He knew it as well, and shook his head. "No. I think we went over everything."
"I'm going to allow you to step down, then. Thank you for your time today, Finn." He stepped backwards to allow Finn to leave the stand.
"You're welcome." It as more a reflexive reply to the thanks he had been given then a reflection of his true feelings. He stepped down and walked out the door, where someone would be waiting to help him.
Only Finn was Finn and he went out the wrong door. He knew to go to the right, but confused his sides again and headed left. Was he going to know what to do? Our lawyer called a brief recess so our family could step out and take Finn home. Mindful of the reporters still watching, I made myself walk slowly until we were through the doors and out of their range. As soon as I was safe, I turned on the speed and raced around the corner to find him. As the smallest and fastest in the family, I stood the best chance of finding him before the wrong person did.
As it turned out, I didn't need to worry. Finn had realized his mistake and, instead of panicking, had remained in place and waited for us. He looked nervous, but still steady. When he saw me, he grinned. "Hey, Kurt."
"Hey yourself. Are you ready to go home?"
He nodded. "Yep. I am really, really, really ready to go home." One arm slung around my shoulders, pressing me against him. He was clearly tired and upset, but seemed stronger then he had after the last time. "Yeah. Really ready to go home."