CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
SUPER DOOPER LONG CHAPTER! So I want lots of reviews...come on...please!?
Website where all photos of all outfits mentioned is on my profile. Sorry if this seems strange, I've never actually been in a court room! This is a long chapter cause it's the entire first day of the trial. I was going to split it up but I didn't want to for continuity. The second day will be another chapter, but I will have chapters in between.
Sitting beside Jax in the white skirt and dress shirt I'd worn for the first day of the trial I know my knuckles are as white as the material I'm wearing when I grip his hand tightly. The lawyer that Craig's parents had hired to defend him keeps looking nervously at the door like he's expecting Craig to walk in at any second, which it's possible he is. Charlotte is sitting quietly at her table, her notes spread in front of her and the second she'd been assigned with just a few days before the trial looking completely out of place.
The judge clears her throat loudly bringing everyone's attention to the front "Mr Johnson, where is your client?"
The defence lawyer gets to his feet "I'm uncertain ma'am. We're currently trying to locate him."
The judge sighs "Given that this trial was brought forward at the request of the defence I'm going to proceed. Until your client appears this will be classed as a trial in absentia."
Charlotte looks up and then turns to me "That means we're going to run the trial as normal, any verdict will stand when Craig reappears. He doesn't have to be here at all."
The judge allows Charlotte the small time she's spent to explain what's going on before turning her attention back to the man still half-standing "I am ready for your opening argument Mr Johnson?"
Craig's lawyer gets to his feet and walks around the table, picking up a single piece of paper "Certainly Ma'am." Turning to the jury he paces in front of them a couple of times before opening his mouth. "I fully intend to prove to this court that the allegations Ms Hale…"
"Objection." Charlotte gets to her feet with a smile at me "My client has married recently and is now Mrs Teller, this information was passed to Mr Johnson weeks ago."
The judge nods, her gaze flicking towards me where I'm surrounded by my friends. "Sustained, Mr Johnson, please remember the name change, it may not be important to you but it was also registered in the files for this case."
The slimy man nods rolling his eyes as he turns around away from the judge "Sorry. We fully intend to prove to this court that the allegations Mrs Teller is making towards our client are lies. While we are not debating her traumatic experience Mr Turner was not party to the kidnapping or subsequent rape, torture and maltreatment that she faced."
"We have evidence here to show that Mr Turner was out of the country when Mrs Teller was kidnapped and did not return till days before she escaped when he started looking for her out of concern for his girlfriend's safety. It was his unfortunate luck to be in the same city as she was found in."
Even from where I'm sitting almost directly behind Charlotte I can see her shoulders tense at the bullshit coming from the mouth of Mr Kyle Johnson, the 'finest' defence lawyer in the state.
"I intend to show that my client was nothing more than a concerned boyfriend in the wrong city at the wrong time." With that he sits back down, shooting a smirk at Charlotte who pauses for a second before standing up.
Charlotte smiles at the judge and passes her quiet gaze over the jury made up of 7 women and 5 men before waving her hand towards me "To put a face to one of the names you'll hear many times during this Mrs Teller is the woman sitting in the front row with her husband." I turn my head towards the people, keeping my expression blank.
"She's not the defendant in this case, she's the victim. She was harassed by her boyfriend and then when she ended the relationship he stalked her. By her own admission she was stupid to take him back but she did and they went on what she was lead to believe was a 'romantic getaway' to reconnect. Over the next days we will show you how Mr Turner harassed my client, finally leading to him kidnapping her and putting her through almost 11 weeks of torture, torment and horror before she finally escaped. Unfortunately the harassing did not end there and while Sarah Teller did have 7 months of relative peace while he was incarcerated. The day of his release he was stalking her again, despite the restraining order placed against him."
Charlotte sits back down and turns around to face me, patting the hand that's clenched around the wood in front of me while the judge looks over at both of them. "We'll take a 10 minute recess now, and Mr Johnson it would be a very good idea if you found your client and got him here."
As he nods furiously everyone gets to their feet while the judge leaves. Charlotte stays where she's sitting looking at me and then at everyone around me "Now would be a good time for any of you to go to the bathroom, or get water if you need it. I don't know who he's going to start by questioning but he's got Alice, Camryn, Katrina and both Craig's parents on his list. As well the pilot of a charter plane who apparently flew Craig from New York to Ottawa, Ontario two days before you were kidnapped, conveniently he's the same one who flew him back four days before you escaped."
I know that by comparison Charlotte's witness list has me, Al, Cam, the ER doctor who admitted me in York, my physiatrist, the manager of the Lumiere building who had brought the security footage with him and the captain of the boat Craig was working on in York.
The ten minutes pass rapidly, when Mr Johnson comes back in he looks just as frustrated as he did when he left, Craig's parents right behind him shoot narrowed eyed glares at me which I ignore as easily as I'd been ignoring the murderous look Katrina had aimed at me since the second she walked into the court room.
We all get back up as the jury and judge file back into the courtroom, Mr Johnson staying standing when everyone else sits down.
Coming round to the front of the table he leans against it, smiling at the jury in a way I can see he's hoping is charming but makes my skin crawl. "My client had what he always described as a perfect relationship with Mrs Teller, until she broke up with him with no reason. He won her back and the pair went back to being 'perfectly happy', those are the words of his parents. When Sarah went missing Craig's parents elected not to tell him as he was in Canada with extended family that he had not seen in years. When he returned and found that she was missing he was understandably upset with his parents for not telling him but was consumed by worry for his girlfriend who by then had been missing for 2 and a half months. He immediately found that not only had his car been stolen and found burnt out in Vermont but that due to this the police considered him a suspect. In a brainless act, his words, he instead of going to the police went to Rutland, Vermont where his car had been found. Over the following four days he searched for his girlfriend, eventually making his way to York, Maine the day she was found. To his complete surprise he was arrested and charged with multiple crimes and imprisoned, despite his protesting of being innocent."
Mr Johnson turns back to his desk and picks up a single sheet of paper "This is the transcript of the very short court showing he had initially." Passing it into the judge she looks at it before nodding and gesturing for it to be passed to any member of the jury who wants to read it. One of the men leans forwards and accepts the page, flicking his eyes over the neatly printed page. Having seen it I know exactly what it says.
Craig had protested his innocence but the witnesses from York who had seen him daily had the trial over in less than 3 hours and Craig locked up for 12 months for the initial kidnapping with the trial for everything else to come, which is how we ended up where we are now.
"There was no chance for my client to defend himself; there was no opportunity for the defence to bring in my first witness, a pilot whose testimony would have completely changed the outcome of that trial. For my first witness I'd like to call Nathan Broadway."
A man I hadn't noticed in the back stands up and works his way towards the seat, being sworn in and sitting down takes a few minutes while I examine his face, certain he looks familiar.
"Mr Broadway may I ask what your profession is?" Johnson starts.
"Certainly, I'm the owner and pilot of a company that charters planes for private flights." He answers and then who he is springs to mind.
Leaning forward I tap Charlotte on the shoulder "I know who he is." Charlotte nods and I continue "He's a pilot yes, but he's also Katrina's brother-in-law."
Johnson looks over and notices my head close to Charlotte's and he clears his throat "And what is your connection to the Turners?"
"Katrina Turner is married to my brother." He states simply, smiling at Katrina and his brother where they're sitting in the row behind Craig's parents.
"And where were you on the night of July 13th?"
"I was in Ottawa, Ontario."
"Why?"
"I'd flown over there that day to take Craig to a family reunion; I stayed the night and returned to New York the following day."
"Is that normal, for you to stay in a city after a chartered flight?"
Nathan shakes his head "No, given it's less than 2 hours normally I would have returned the same night, but the reunion didn't start till the following day so I stayed with Craig to keep him company till his family arrived."
"And what did you do while you were there?"
"Objection, relevance?" Charlotte stands up.
The judge looks at Mr Johnson "Is there a point?"
He nods "Yes, three more questions and I'm done."
"Overruled, continue."
He smirks over his shoulder as Nathan clears his throat "We played a few games of pool, Craig bet me soundly each time. Drank a few beers and called it a night about 8pm."
"And during the time preceding your parting did Mr Turner phone anyone?"
Nathan nods "He did, he called his girlfriend twice, once just after we landed and once just before we went to bed."
"Were they long phone calls?"
Nathan shrugs "The first one was they talked for about 15 minutes. The second one was maybe 3 minutes."
"And finally on this line of questioning, was Mr Turner in a good mood both while he was on the phone and not?"
Nathan nods "He was in a great mood. After the first phone call he kept talking about how he wanted to marry Sarah and he was going to propose when he got back. By the time he got off the phone the second time he was tired, but still in a good mood. He certainly went to his room smiling."
"Did you see him again before returning to New York?"
Nathan shakes his head "No, I left early the next morning, leaving Ottawa at 6am. The next time I saw him was when I returned to Ottawa to pick him up on the 25th of September, when we did do the return flight in a day at Mr and Mrs Turners request, he didn't know that Sarah was missing and they didn't want to tell him over the phone."
"Did you tell him?"
Nathan shakes his head again "No, they asked me not to."
"Did he ask where she was?"
"He did, several times; he tried to ring her as soon as we landed as well but couldn't reach her."
"Had he tried while he was in Canada?" Johnson leans against his table again, joining his hands in front of his body.
"No, his phone fell out of his pocket while he and his family were at some waterfall and it broke, he intended on replacing it when he got back to New York."
"So he returned home not knowing his girlfriend was missing and had been for weeks. What was his reaction when he found out?"
Nathan clears his throat and looks towards Craig's parents with a sad smile "He was angry at his parents for not telling him, not getting hold of him somehow. But when he computed what they were saying he lost it."
"Lost it? Sorry I don't understand what you mean."
"He started crying, screaming, and asking where she was and how he could find her. He started searching for her within a few hours of finding out."
"And what happened?"
"He rang us every day to let us know what was happening, the day before he was arrested he told us he'd found a lead in York and he'd let us know what happened. Then he rang the next day to say he'd been arrested and accused of kidnapping Sarah and holding her captive." Nathan stops for a second and takes a few breaths "He was incarcerated for 7 months but because of a technicality his parents were able to get him bailed till this trial. Two days after he was released he left New York, intending to get to the bottom of the bogus guilty verdict."
"And what happened then?"
"He sent a letter when he got back to Maine saying he'd be back for the trial."
"Thank you, that's all." Mr Johnson takes his seat with a smirk at Charlotte who gathers a few papers in front of herself before standing.
"Mr Broadway, as a pilot you're required by law to submit flight manifests are you not?"
He nods "I am."
Charlotte lifts a few sheets of paper from the pile "So can you please tell me why there is a manifest here on the 12th of July for you and five passengers to go from New York to Naples?"
"I flew to Naples on the 12th and then back to New York on the 13th, there I picked up Craig and we went straight to Ottawa."
"But there is no return manifest from Naples till the 17th, when you and the same 5 passengers returned to New York." Charlotte passes the copies of the manifests to the jury.
"I don't know. There must have been a mistake. I went to Naples on the 12th, back to New York on the 13th. Then I returned to Naples on the 16th to collect my passengers for their return flight on the 17th." Nathan says slowly.
"So you flew almost 9 hours to take a family member on a 2 hour flight?"
Nathan nods and Charlotte smiles "So who pays for the fuel for the 18 hours of flying you had to do for this short flight to help a family member?"
"No one. I took it at a loss." Nathan replies, smiling in a way he thinks is engaging, having been on the end of it a few times myself.
Charlotte returns to her table and lifts another sheet of paper "I did a bit of research about something such as this, a plane such as yours will use approximately 2900 gallons on a flight from Naples to New York, this works out to 8 thousand dollars. Each way. You happily made a loss of at least 16 thousand dollars to help a family member?"
Nathan nods again, his smile fading a little as Charlotte passes the calculations over, showing the volume of fuel a plane like Nathan flies uses, at .73 gallons per nautical mile and 3831 nautical miles from New York City to Naples, Italy, and the current cost of 2.80 per gallon of jet fuel.
"Your plane also holds a maximum of 2985 gallons of fuel you would have landed in Naples with approximately 40 gallons of fuel left, you would have had to refuel before you left yet the airport you landed at has no records of you getting any fuel till the 16th when you refuelled with 2940 gallons of fuel costing $8,232. How did you get back to New York with only 40 gallons of fuel left?"
"Objection." Johnson jumps to his feet "How the witness got from Naples to New York is of no concern to this trial, and if he chose to make a loss in his business to help family that's his choice."
"Overruled, I for one would like to know how Mr Broadway and his plane, got from Naples to New York without refuelling, and if he can explain how not one but 2 flight manifests went missing." The judge says with a stern look at Mr Johnson.
Nathan frowns "I don't know how the manifests went missing; the records of the flight are in my pilot log book." He points towards one of the exhibits, the dark leather book showing miles flown and the maintenance history that every plane is required to have. "As for the fuel, I flew to Rome and refuelled there."
Charlotte chuckles "So if we contact that airport they'll have a record?"
Nathan nods enthusiastically "It was the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport."
Charlotte nods "I'm finished with that line of questioning, I only have a couple more for you then you're free to go."
Nathan nods, sighing slightly in relief.
Charlotte returns to her desk again and picks up a page, the blown up page almost 4 feet square. Holding it towards herself she smiles kindly at Nathan "You were in Canada on the night of July 13th, correct?"
Nathan nods and she slowly turns the page around, revealing it to be a newspaper page blown up "Then can you please explain how photos containing you and your 5 passengers ended up in a photo article regarding an all-night event on the 13th?"
Nathan shrugs "The time difference."
Charlotte looks at him through the top of her eyes "The event I'm talking about starts at approximately 8pm Italy time, 2pm Canadian time and runs through till 6am the following morning, midnight in Canada, which would be midnight on the 13th, when you were apparently already in Canada. How did this happen?"
Nathan shrugs again "I don't know."
Charlotte shrugs "So we have missing manifests, thousands of dollars' worth of fuel that magically appeared, and a pilot who is in an entirely different country to where he claims to be. It's not at all possible that you didn't in fact fly Mr Turner anywhere?"
"Objection!" Johnson jumps to his feet again, his face screwed up as Charlotte calmly walks back to her table.
"Withdrawn. I'm finished with this witness." She says sitting down.
The judge looks over at Johnson and lifts an eyebrow "Would you like to Redirect?"
He shakes his head and watches as the judge excuses Nathan, who glares at me as he walks past before sliding into the row with Katrina and his brother.
Johnson stands up and walks back around the front of his table, calling Craig's mother as his second witness. While she's being put under oath and settling into her seat I take a long look at her, she certainly looks like she's been worried about her son. There are deep grooves around her eyes and even sitting she's wringing her hands or picking at her finger nails.
"Please state your name and relationship to the defendant for the record."
"Deirdre Turner, I'm Craig's mother." She says, leaning closer to the microphone.
"Thank you Mrs Turner."
"Tell me, what did you think of Sarah and Craig's relationship?"
Deirdre smiles softly "I thought they were very lucky to have found each other so young. They were soul mates, the perfect balance of each other. While Craig could be a bit impulsive and over-emotional Sarah was very relaxed and methodical."
"What did you think when you found out Sarah was missing?" Johnson asks, sitting on his desk.
"I was worried about her, of course, she was my future daughter-in-law and I was concerned for her health and safety." Deirdre replies, looking over at me with a mixture of concern and anger in her eyes.
"Yet you chose not to tell your son, her boyfriend, that she was missing?"
Deirdre nods "We did, mainly because between his father and myself, and Sarah's friends, we already had an extensive search group looking for her, and when they found his car I knew he'd become a suspect."
"Would it not have made sense to bring him back the minute she went missing, or when you found he was a suspect, so that he could clear his name?"
Deirdre shrugs "In hindsight, yes. We should have rung him the day that Sarah's friend Alice rang to find out where they'd gone, we did tell her then that Craig was in Canada, and not anywhere with Sarah."
Al grunts in disbelief behind me, the sound of Juice whispering soothing words reaching my ears a second later.
"You referred to Sarah as your future Daughter-in-law, had they gotten engaged?"
Deirdre shakes her head "No, but Craig was going to propose when he returned from his trip. He asked me the day before he left to get my mothers' engagement ring out of the safe at the bank for him. He'd planned to take Sarah on a hot air balloon ride and ask her to be his wife."
I just about snort at that but instead my fingers tighten around Jax's till he pulls my hand up to his lips and kisses my knuckles lightly, whispering "Relax babe." against my skin. Charlotte turns around in her seat and lifts an eyebrow waiting till I lean closer to her.
"If Craig had tried to take me on a balloon ride he would have been disappointed, I couldn't fly without sleeping pills till recently. I had a horrible phobia of flying after Mom and Dad died. He knew that, he tried to spring a surprise trip to Mexico on me once and I couldn't even get on the plane." Charlotte nods, making a note in front of her and turning back to the front where Deirdre is explaining how they'd organised the search.
"William and I hired a couple of private detectives to search while the children and Sarah's friends were searching as well."
"And was any trace of her found?" Johnson asks, wandering slowly in front of the jury box.
"No, they never found any information about where she was until the day she was admitted to the hospital, the detectives didn't find that out till 2 days later, after Craig had already been arrested."
"How did you deal with your son being charged, and found guilty of what he was accused?"
Deirdre shakes her head "I knew it was all a huge misunderstanding and if I could talk to Sarah that she'd be able to sort it all out for me, but her friends wouldn't let me, or anyone else related to my son, near her at all. When Sarah finally returned to New York I thought I'd be able to see her and we could talk but when I went to her apartment building I was told I was not allowed there and if I, or anyone else related to Craig, came back we'd be trespassed."
Al and Cam both sigh behind me and I shake my head so they don't worry about it, I knew that Deirdre had been trying to see me, and I'd told the security in the building myself that no one with any connection to Craig was allowed in the building.
"So your son was incarcerated and the person who could have gotten him freed was blocking all attempts at contact?" Johnson says and Deirdre nods and he continues "Did you attempt any other ways of contacting Mrs Teller?"
"I went through both Miss Lane and Miss Franklin and her lawyer. Each time I was told that the message would be passed on but I never heard back."
"And while you were doing all of this you were also travelling to Maine to visit your son?"
Deirdre nods again "William and I were both going every weekend to see him to update him with the appeals, none of which went anywhere."
"Just one more question. Do you think your son is capable of the things he was accused of?"
"Objection!" Charlotte jumps to her feet "No parent is going to believe that their child is capable of any crimes, let alone the ones that Mr Turner is accused of here."
"Withdrawn." Johnson smiles at Deirdre in "Thank you, no further questions." Johnson says, sitting back down while Charlotte gets to her feet slowly.
"Mrs Turner, I only have a couple of questions for you." Stepping around her desk Charlotte leans against the front of it and smiles softly at Craig's mother "Did you know how Sarah's parents died?"
Deirdre nods "They were killed in a plane crash when she was a child."
"So it should come as no surprise to you that until very recently Sarah was unable to fly without being sedated. Craig Turner was well aware of Sarah's phobia of flying and for him to plan a proposal including anything in the air is a little odd."
Deirdre frowns "I wasn't aware of her fear of flying; she came to Cabo with us once and flew without problems."
Charlotte looks over at me and I shake my head "Just one moment."
Returning to her desk she leans down "I was sedated during that flight, we were there for 2 weeks and for the first 48 hours I didn't leave our room while the medication wore off. Craig covered for me by telling them I was jet lagged."
"Can you get proof?" Charlotte whispers back and I nod, it'll take me one phone call and my doctors will send over the list of medications and when they were given. I only ever asked for the sedatives when I was flying.
Charlotte stands back up "Sorry about that. Sarah just told me that she was sedated for that flight, and the 2 days following she was getting over the after effects. Do you remember her being not herself?"
Deirdre shakes her head "The first couple of days she suffered very bad jet lag which was strange in itself as they are only a couple of hours apart. We didn't see her till the third day we were there when she was still quiet sleepy and a little off her food."
Rolling my eyes I nod once, those were the side effects I had every time I took a sedative, that and being unable to stand sunlight for the first 24 hours afterwards.
"You said your son could be over-emotional, can you explain that please?" Charlotte asks, perching on the edge of her table again.
Deirdre smiles "Of course. Craig tended to fall in love very fast, and very hard. He didn't take rejection or heart break very well. When Sarah broke up with him the first time he spent the following three days in his apartment crying constantly and refusing to eat. He'd cry till he passed out, then when he woke up again he'd cry more. When they got back together Craig was ecstatic, he was sure that Sarah had realised what a mistake it was breaking up in the first place and he was determined to make her see they were perfect together."
"Thank you, no more questions." Charlotte sits down and again Johnson refuses the right to redirect.
"We'll take recess now for lunch. Convene back here in 1 hour." The judge says before Johnson can call his next witness.
Charlotte gets to her feet and gestures the junior towards the door "Go check out the reporter ratio out there."
The young man hurries towards the door, returning a couple of minutes later "There's four out there, but they're all gathered around some sports guy who got busted for drunk driving. If we leave now we should be okay."
Derek looks up from his phone "Joe can be here in six minutes with a car."
I shake my head "No, if I can get away with walking out of here today then I want to. Four reporters I think we can deal with, there are 10 of us after all."
Derek nods, putting his phone back into his pocket "Okay. Joe is on call at the hotel if you change your mind. Trish had ordered lunch; it will be at the conference room in 10 minutes."
The 10 of us make the short walk back to the hotel, going straight to the conference room where I spend the first 15 minutes hugging Abel and giving him a bottle after draping my front with a hotel towel.
Jax drags me back to the present by shoving a plate in front of me with a smile. "Sarah you need to eat something."
I nod, frowning at the plate in front of me "Is there any wontons?"
Al laughs, pushing the container towards me "I may have eaten a few."
Poking my tongue out at her I eat a couple of wontons and some chicken and noodles from the Chinese place next door to the hotel. Charlotte finishes her plate of shrimp and rice, pushing it away and popping a breath mint in her mouth with an offhand comment about talking to the jury with fish breath being a bad move, then thanking Trish for taking into account that she's a Pescetarian.
Charlotte picks up her papers and looks over "So we can probably guess that the afternoon witnesses will be William, Katrina and maybe either Alice or Camryn if Johnson can get to you as well. It'll be tomorrow morning at the earliest before he's done with his witnesses. Of course with him having both Camryn and Alice on his lists I can ask my questions when I cross-examine you."
The pair of my friends nods in agreement "Then that just has me with 6 other witnesses."
I nod and Jax frowns "Who? You've told us who the scumbag has but not who you're bringing in."
Charlotte picks up one of the loose pages. "Sorry. So Johnson had, pilot, parents, sibling, Al and Cam. I've got Al and Cam obviously who will do more for my case then his. Dr Connor, the ER doctor Dr Hanson, the psychiatrist Brett, who is the manager of Lumiere and Tony, the captain of the boat Craig worked on in York. I think that he's going to ask the same questions to Mr Turner as he did Mrs."
I shake my head "That would be rather pointless. I only met William about a dozen times in the whole time I was with Craig. Deirdre I saw at least once a month."
Charlotte notes that down "How was your relationship with him?"
"Strained. He didn't like me from the minute we met. For some reason he was convinced I was a gold digger. He told me so once. He said that the only attraction I had to Craig was to his bank balance." I shake my head again "I just about laughed out loud, but at that stage Craig didn't even know what I was worth."
Charlotte hums and writes something else down before looking over "Trish, if I need you are you able to come?"
She nods "I can, but I'm not sure what I can say that others can't say."
"You can testify to Sarah's inability to be left alone after her return to New York."
Trish nods "So can Al, Cam, Derek, Terry and Joe in that case."
"Who are the last two?" Charlotte asks.
"Joe, our driver, he drove her around for the first 6 months after she came home when she couldn't even be in a car by herself. Terry's our chef; the pair of them spent lots of days together. Amy can say the same, she's our housekeeper."
Charlotte nods "We can always bring them in if we have to. At this stage I don't think we'll need any off you." Glancing at her watch she stands up "We should probably head back now just in case there is a mob there."
Getting back into the court room is a just as easy as it was when we were leaving, the sportsman who had captured the attention of the reporters is gone and the 10 of us get some raised eyebrows as we come through the doors, but with none of us recognisable at all we make it to the door of the courtroom without fuss.
Johnson is already back and in his seat, twisted around and facing Craig's family talking in a low voice that doesn't carry around the empty room.
Charlotte changes our seating arrangement, putting Cam and Al on the ends in case they are called for questioning in the afternoon session, even though she's pretty sure only one will make it up there today.
When the judge comes back in we all do our Jack-in-the-box impersonations till she's seated again and brings the court back to order, turning control back to the defence.
Johnson stands up and smiles politely at the jury "My next witness is William Turner."
Craig's dad stands up and walks towards the witness box, the limp from his artificial lower leg more pronounced today and I know that he's hamming it up hoping for sympathy.
Sitting down heavily once he's sworn in he makes a great show of adjusting his leg for several seconds before looking up "Sorry Kyle, having a few issues with the fake leg."
Nodding Johnson looks towards the jury briefly "That's quiet alright William, take your time, make sure you're comfortable."
Charlotte turns to me and lifts her eyes towards the roof with a snicker. I'd filled her in on the prosthetic, how long he'd had it and all the other information I could think of in case it came up somehow.
William leans back and nods towards the lawyer who clears his throat "Please state your name and relationship to the defendant for the record."
"William Turner, Craig is my son." He replies with a smile at his wife.
Johnson takes what has become his normal position leaning against his table and continues his questions. "What did you think of Sarah and Craig's relationship?"
William stops to think for a few seconds of complete silence "I thought it was a bit rushed, but they were happy every time I saw them."
"What did you think when you found out Sarah was missing?"
"I thought she might have gone back to Florida to visit her parents' graves, or to California where she lived before coming to New York. It wasn't till she had been missing for a week that I started to become concerned."
"Can you explain why you and your wife chose not to tell your son that she was missing?"
"Deirdre hired a private detective when Sarah had been missing for 4 days, then the second one after 2 weeks with no word. I didn't see the point in bringing Craig home from a very overdue holiday and reunion with family he hadn't seen when we already had plenty of people looking for her."
"Did you ever go out and look?"
William shakes his head sadly "No, unfortunately due to my limitations with the prosthetic leg I couldn't be much help. I stayed at home and co-ordinated our search efforts, which were hampered by Sarah's friends refusing to share any of their information."
Johnson looks towards Al and Cam and shakes his head sadly, turning back to William "Were you aware of your son's intentions to marry Sarah?"
"No. I knew that he'd asked his mother to get his grandmothers ring from the safe, but our last conversation Craig had assured me he was going to wait at least a year before proposing."
"And what did you think of that idea?"
"I agreed with it. They'd had a rocky few months and needed to be sure they wanted to be together before they took a commitment like marriage on."
"How did you deal with your son being charged, and found guilty of what he was accused?"
"I suppose I didn't deal well, it's hard to believe that your son could be capable of the things he was accused of, not that I actually believe that he did any of those horrible things. The trial he had was so short neither his mother nor I could get there. Reading the transcript I can understand why. He was found guilty before he even got on the stand thanks to testimony from locals."
"Objection. The witness is assuming." Charlotte says.
The judge nods and looks towards the jury "You will disregard that last comment."
"Final question William. Did you ever attempt to contact Sarah or any of her friends while she was missing?"
He nods "We tried Sarah's phone daily for the first 3 weeks and her friends every 3 or 4 days after the second week, but as I said, they never shared any information and refused to speak to us about anything."
"Thank you, that's all." Johnson sits back down and leans against the back of his chair as Charlotte gets up and starts walking slowly in front of the jury box.
"How well would you say you knew Sarah?"
William shrugs, looking over at me "Not well, we didn't see each other very much. I was often busy with work when she would come to the house to see my wife. From what I knew she was a nice girl with her head firmly attached."
"You said that you thought their relationship was rushed, why?" Charlotte asks, turning her gaze to Craig's father.
"Well, they just seemed to go through steps very fast. They hadn't been together long when Craig was asking her to move in with him. Then they hit a rocky patch and it seemed that their relationship was over, but when they reunited things went back to moving fast."
Charlotte nods "How long were they together?"
William shrugs once more "I don't know maybe a year in total."
Charlotte shakes her head "Your son and Sarah were together over 2 and a half years. It was over a year and a half after they met that Craig started asking Sarah to move in with him, something she continually refused as where she lived was perfect for her location wise."
Johnson stands up "Objection, relevance?"
Charlotte turns around "I was simply bringing it to Mr Turner's attention that their relationship was substantially longer than he thought."
The judge nods "I'll allow it. Miss Taylor, do you have any further questions?"
Charlotte nods "Just a couple Ma'am." Looking back to William she smiles kindly once more "You said your prosthesis made it hard for you to join the search parties looking for Sarah?"
William nods and she picks up a piece of paper "Yet you were able to compete in the New York marathon 2 months after Sarah escaped her captivity. What changed in those months?"
"Objection. What happened in the witness's life during those months has nothing to do with his disability or inability to join the search parties."
"Sustained." The judge says and Charlotte nods, she'd told me that at least one of her questions would go like that and the only reason she was saying it was to get the jury to realise that there were a lot of holes in the Turners stories.
"Final question. Did you ever discuss with your wife, or son that you thought Sarah was nothing but a gold digger, as you accused her on at least one occasion?"
William pales, his eyes darting to his wife who sits up in her seat "No. I never told anyone I was concerned about Sarah's intentions. As I said, I thought their relationship was rushed and I always thought it was her rushing it to get to Craig's inheritance."
Charlotte nods "No further questions your honour."
"Mr Johnson, would you like to redirect?"
He nods and stands up "Towards the end of their relationship, did you still think Sarah was a gold digger?"
William laughs, shaking his head "No. Not at all."
"Why?"
"She finally shared information regarding her financial situation with our son who told us that he was more concerned about being seen as after her money."
"Thank you, that's all."
William steps down, making a show of limping back to his seat while Kyle sits quietly waiting. Once William is seated he turns towards the judge "My next witness is Katrina Turner."
It seems obvious from his third of Craig's family members that for them he has a specific script he's sticking to. The same base questions are asked again and Katrina rattles off fairly boring answers.
"Please state your name and relationship to the defendant for the record."
"Katrina Turner, Craig was my older brother."
"What did you think of Sarah and Craig's relationship?"
"I thought they were great together. Craig and Sarah had what I have with my husband and like Mom I was happy they'd found each other so young."
"What did you think when you found out Sarah was missing?"
"I was worried about her, and how it would make Craig feel when he came back and found out she went missing while he was away having fun."
"Did you agree with your parents' choice not to tell him?"
"No. I thought they should have told him the first chance they had."
"How did you deal with your brother being charged, and found guilty of what he was accused?"
"I knew he was innocent of all charges and he'd be freed when he could tell his side of what happened, and show his supporting evidence."
"Final question. Did you ever attempt to contact Sarah, or any of her friends?"
"Not really. I knew that Mom and Dad weren't having any luck so I didn't think I would either. I left a couple of messages at the building front desk and one with her lawyer and figured that if she wanted to talk to me then she'd get hold of me."
"Thank you." Johnson sits back down and Charlotte stands up quietly thinking.
"I only have a couple of questions for you. You said that Craig was your older brother. Why did you use a past tense?"
Katrina narrows her eyes at me "Because he's dead."
"How do you know this?" Charlotte asks.
"I don't know it, but I know my brother. He didn't do any of the things she accused him of, he wouldn't disappear without telling someone where he was going and he would not stay out of contact this long."
Charlotte hums "So you knew your brother very well?"
Katrina nods "Being so close in age we were best friends when we were children."
"So you knew about his battle with substance abuse?"
Katrina sighs "Yes. I was the one that got him into rehab."
"And would it surprise you that when he was arrested in Maine he was intoxicated and the blood screen they did showed high enough levels of alcohol and cocaine that he shouldn't have been able to walk?"
Katrina's mouth snaps closed so fast the echo of her teeth hitting each other sounds in the room.
Charlotte waits for almost a whole minute "Well?"
Katrina shakes her head "I didn't know he was using again. He swore every time we spoke to him that he was clean."
Charlotte steps back to her table "So maybe you didn't know you brother as well as you though?"
Katrina drops her head into her hands, nodding "It seems I didn't."
"And how would you describe your relationship with Sarah?"
Katrina spares one short look over at me "I thought we were friends till she accused my brother of all these things then vanished into the wind before anything could be cleared up."
Johnson takes his chance and asks her one more question "During his time in Canada and then searching for Sarah how often did you speak to each other?"
"Every second day." She replies with a frown, killing any chance he had of suggesting that they hadn't spoken in a while and the using was a really new thing when he was arrested.
Johnson glances at the clock then at the jury "I only have one more witness for today."
Al and Cam both lean forward, knowing it's going to be one of them that get called seeing they are the last two names on his list.
"I call Alice Lane to the witness stand."
Cam leans back in her seat as Al gets to her feet, walking through the little gate towards the stand; just before she can walk past me I grab her hand and press a bracelet into her fingertips. Looking down she smiles at me and clenches her fist around it.
After being sworn in she casually leans back into the chair and crosses her legs in front of her.
"Please state your name and relationship to the defendant for the record."
Al smiles over at me "My name is Alice Lane; I'm one of Sarah Teller's best friends."
"One of?"
Al lifts an eyebrow "Yes."
"Okay. What did you think of Sarah and Craig's relationship?"
Al shrugs "I thought they were good together at first…" The rest of her sentence is cut off when Johnson clears his throat and moves straight on to his next question.
"What did you think when you found out Sarah was missing?"
"Cam, Camryn Franklin, and I were the ones to report her missing when she didn't come back in time to go back to work. We started searching for her the day we filed the report."
"Was it normal for Sarah to vanish for long periods of time?"
She'd always go away for a few days in February, right around the time her parents died. Cam and I both assumed she went back to see their graves, we never asked where she went but she was always back within 3 days at the most, so when she was three days late coming back we knew something was wrong."
"And how were you searching for her?"
Al frowns "We were actually searching for both her and Craig. We'd told the police that the last person she was with was Craig, seeing that's what we knew. Derek, Cam's father had organised a search team that started in New York and then went through to Vermont."
"Did you ever try and get hold of Craig while Sarah was missing?"
Al nods "I tried him a few times in the first couple of days. I left four messages asking him to ring me before I left one telling him Sarah was missing and the last thing we knew was that she was going away with him. I never heard back from any of them."
"Did you find any traces of either of them?"
Al shakes her head "No, there was nothing found on either of their bank cards, neither of their phones would work so we could try and find them through the GPS's on them and when Craig's car was found burnt out in Vermont the detectives moved their search to around that area."
"Were you concerned about Craig's welfare?"
Al nods and coughs a little "I was, he was the last person who'd been seen with my best friend and I thought if we could find him we'd find her."
"Did you think Craig was capable of what he was accused?"
Al frowns sounding very thoughtful as she speaks "I don't know, I wouldn't have thought so initially, but by the end of their relationship I guess it was possible."
"Thank you. That's all."
Charlotte stands up and passes Al her water bottle which she accepts with thanks.
"You said you liked Sarah and Craig together, at first can you expand on that."
Al drinks a few mouthfuls of water and nods "I'm a tattoo artist by trade, Sarah missed her home town and missed California and wanted something to represent the town on her body, I started with a very small band around her ankle before she decided that it wasn't enough and we designed a sleeve."
"Sorry, a what?"
Al lifts one of her arms, the singlet style top exposing both her arms "A sleeve is a tattoo that goes from shoulder to wrist, like the sleeve of a shirt." Running her hand over the birds on her arm, from the sparrow on her shoulder to the hummingbird on her forearm. "The sleeve made it very clear the problems in their relationship were more than bickering over who left the milk on the bench and the cap off the toothpaste and my opinion of Craig became very much the opposite of what it had started as."
"Why did your opinion change so rapidly?"
"The day I started on Sarah's sleeve Craig started insulting her, telling her she was making herself look low class and that she'd have to wear long sleeves around him all the time because he didn't like how she was defacing herself with the tattoos. He began trying to control what she would wear, he tried to destroy a lot of her clothes which Cam and I managed to save and I moved them to my apartment."
Charlotte nods "And did they fight?"
Al shakes her head "Not really, well not around me but I always knew that Sarah was biting her lip. I stopped having much contact with her when he was around, mainly so she didn't have to keep the peace."
"Why would she have done that?" Charlotte asks.
"Her best friend didn't like her boyfriend, and vice versa. Neither of us tried to hide our dislike of each other and it made it quite strained for her."
"What led to her leaving New York so suddenly?"
Al shudders and looks down at the bracelet I pressed into her hands "Fear for her safety is what made her leave."
"Why did she fear for her safety?"
"Cam found a headless cat in front of their door. I had the head nailed to my door. We decided that she obviously wasn't safe and she decided she needed to leave town. She left that afternoon with what she could pack in her car and headed to California."
"What was in California?"
Al holds up the bracelet in her hand "Family. Her family was in Cali, the people that took her in when she was orphaned at 12, the ones that looked after her till she was 18 when she moved to New York."
"And she stayed in California?"
Al nods "She did."
"Three more questions Miss Lane, and then I'm done."
Al nods and smiles cheerfully "Okay."
"How would you describe Mrs Teller's mental state when she left New York?"
Al looks over at me and frowns "Sorry S. She was a wreck. She hadn't slept in weeks; when she did sleep she'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming in fear. She was barely eating; we had to force her to eat once a day so she wouldn't pass out. Cam and I were considering moving her into Cam's father's house so we could have someone with her 24/7, even though Cam was there for at least 10 hours a day and I was there for at least 10, there was a few hours each day where neither of us could be with her and we were worried that something would happen to her and she'd loose what control of herself she had."
Turning to the jury Charlotte lifts a copy of my firearms licence from the table "Mrs Teller was licenced to carry a concealed weapon prior to her hospitalisation, during the period she was undergoing psychiatric assessment this was suspended, but subsequently returned to her. Did you fear that Mrs Teller would harm herself?"
Al shakes her head furiously "No. Cam and I never worried about that, Sarah handed over her weapon the day she came back from the hospital and Cam moved all of hers to my apartment and I changed the combination on both my safes, at Sarah's request, even though, in her words, she knew she'd never take a cowards way out of her issues."
"And my final question, how would you rate her mental state now."
Al smiles hugely "She's happier than I've ever seen her in the whole four years I've known her. She can't stop smiling most of the time and she's got this aura around her that makes the people that love her happy in themselves."
"No further questions your honour." Charlotte says, returning to her seat with a bright smile at me.
Johnson stands back up "I only have one further question. Mrs Tellers gun licence. What happened to it?"
Al groans "After granting her a temporary licence till they could completely assess her application the State of California denied her request to keep her licence on the grounds of her mental stability."
"Thank you." Johnson sits back down but Al leans forwards.
"The state of California denied her request to keep her licence on the grounds of mental stability without reading any of the reports that had been sent by Sarah's shrink, or the retired Lieutenant Colonel from the United States army that put us through our training with weapons swearing that he would never be concerned about her and her handling of a weapon." Al stands up and walks down through the gates, all but falling into Juice's arms while the judge closes the case for the day, letting us know that the trial will re-convene in the morning at 9am and once again ordering Kyle Johnson to find his client.
AN: I know that was a lot of stuff in one chapter, and there is still Cam's testimony and the entire of the prosecution to go.