Chapter 7 - The Closed-Circuit Battle
The day of the deposition arrived, cold and grey with early winter sleet. I sat in the main courtroom downtown, watching the large flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall above the jury box.
On the screen, Connor sat in Dr. Carter’s playroom, holding Mr. Peanuts in his lap. He looked tiny, but his shoulders were squared. Diane’s high-priced defense attorney, a man named Henderson who looked like he had never missed a steak dinner, stood up to cross-examine the monitor.
"Connor," Henderson said, his voice boomingly loud through the courtroom speakers. "You played a lot of video games on that phone, didn't you? Is it possible you were playing a game that day and mixed up what you saw with a movie?"
On the monitor, Connor didn't flinch. He looked directly into the camera lens. "No, sir. I didn't mix it up. Aunt Diane told me the white powder was sugar for Gracie’s juice because Gracie was too loud. But sugar doesn't come out of a medicine bottle with a name scraped off."
"But you didn't see her give the box to Gracie on that exact video, did you?" Henderson pressed, trying to find a legal loophole.
"I saw Gracie drink it ten minutes later," Connor said, his voice steadying, gaining strength. "And then she fell down by the toy box and couldn't get back up. Aunt Diane told her to stop being lazy and left her on the floor while she watched TV. I took Gracie into the closet and gave her Mr. Peanuts because she was cold."
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A low murmur went through the courtroom gallery. Diane, sitting at the defense table, suddenly covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking. It wasn't remorse; it was the realization that an eight-year-old boy had just dismantled her entire life with three sentences.
Clara Vance looked over at me from the prosecution table and gave a small, definitive nod. The defense was dead in the water.
