After (36 page)

Coach Mark had spotted Devon as she was standing outside her lit class before fourth period. She’d ducked into the classroom, hoping to avoid him, but he’d followed her into the classroom anyway.

“Hey, Dev!” He slapped her on the back, winked. “You haven’t been hiding from me, have you?” He was smiling, but his eyes held a mix of worry and hurt.

Devon squinted up at him, laughed one of those fake, nervous laughs. “Of course not, Coach!” She’d kept her eyes locked on his eyebrows so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “No, I’ve just been really busy. You know, getting ready to come back and everything.”

“Kait mentioned she saw you running over the weekend. Down on Ruston Way.”

“Yeah, I’ve been running a lot. . . .”

“And the physical therapy? Still going okay?”

Devon had felt a small twinge then. There was no physical therapy. “Sure. Great.” Then she added quickly, “I’m . . . I mean,
they’re
thinking that maybe I’ll be able to come back and practice soon. Maybe even next week. Limited at first, but still . . .”

“Great!
Great
news, Dev.” Coach Mark paused, and his face turned serious for a flash. “Really missed you at State Cup. I’m sure you’ve heard—”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry, Coach. I—”

He put up his hand, stopping her. “Don’t worry. State Cup’s not the end of the world. There’ll be other years, lots of them. We don’t want you back until you’re one hundred percent.” Then his face brightened. “Hey, why don’t you just come by and watch practice this week? Maybe end your run at the field. I’ve been working on some new drills; you can tell me what you think. Sound good?”

“Okay.” Devon smiled big, locking it in place. “Yeah, I’ll do that, Coach. Definitely.”

“Okay, then.” He’d winked at her again, gave her a thumbs-up. “I’ll be looking for you.”

“Okay, Coach.”

Devon watched him round the classroom door just as the bell rang. When he was gone, Devon’s smile fell. Taking her seat in class, she realized that her face actually hurt. As if the muscles in her cheeks and around her eyes weren’t strong enough anymore to hold something as heavy as a smile.

She knew she wouldn’t be jogging by practice, not that week. Not ever.

Dom is talking now, asking Coach Mark where he works. Devon opens her eyes.

“I’m a history teacher at Stadium High School,” he says. “Here in Tacoma.”

“And in what capacity do you know Devon Davenport?”

Coach Mark clears his throat. “I’m her soccer coach. At Stadium High School each fall, I coach the varsity girls’ soccer team, where she’s played as my starting goalkeeper for two seasons. I also happen to be Devon’s club soccer coach at the Washington Premier Football Club, which pretty much runs all through the rest of the year with a few weeks off here and there in the winter and summer. I’ve been her club coach ever since she started competitive soccer at age eleven, in fact, so that’ll make it”—he pauses to think—“a total of five years that I’ve known her now.”

“So, Mr. Dougherty, after coaching Devon over those five years, could you please describe to the court what kind of person you have known her to be?”

Devon knows that Dom wouldn’t have asked him to speak today if he was going to say something negative. But still, she can’t help but feel tense listening. She bites her lower lip, holds her breath.

“Devon’s a great kid,” Coach Mark says. “She really is. The kind of kid that would do anything that you ask her to do; she’s what I call a ‘go to’ player. She’s reliable, always shows up for practices on time. Even on the varsity team where she’s one of the youngest players, she takes a leadership role. She does extra practices, often with the boys her age, and the other players see this. So, she’s a great role model in that area. Unmatched work ethic. And that crosses over to her academics as well. She’s a top student in honors classes, from what I understand. Just an overall fantastic kid.”

Devon feels that swelling in her throat again, that awful ache. He doesn’t really mean all those things. How can he? Not after what he knows about her now.

“And what do you think of her potential as a soccer player?”

“Unlimited. And I don’t say that about many of my players. If she had continued on the curve she was on, there’s no question that she’d be playing soccer on a college scholarship at a D One—excuse me, a
Division
One—school someday.”

“According to your observations over the past five years, do you believe that Devon has had a lot of support at home for her sport?”

“If you mean by ‘support,’ were Devon’s soccer fees paid on time? Yes, they were, generally. Did she show up with the correct equipment—cleats, goalie gloves, uniforms? Always. But if you’re talking emotional support, from my perspective, Devon’s mother wasn’t much involved in Devon’s soccer career. And let me say that it’s understandable, given her work schedule. From what I’ve gleaned about Devon’s home life, her dad’s completely out of the picture. And Devon’s mom, trying to make ends meet as a single parent, keeps two jobs. I imagine her mom’s stretched pretty thin most of the time.”

“Did Devon’s mother often attend the games?”

“No, not much. She came pretty regularly when Devon was younger, but her attendance really dropped off as Devon entered middle school. I mean, to the point that I started checking the sidelines while the game was going on to see if she was out there.”

“And why did you do that, Mr. Dougherty?”

“You know, I feel sorry for my players whose parents run their lives—micromanaging their kids’ soccer careers or living vicariously through their successes or failures. But I also felt sorry for Devon, who was on the opposite side of the spectrum. Nobody seemed to be a part of her life, nobody seemed to
care
, at least about her soccer, and yet she pushed herself so hard. Was so hard on
herself
. Was so driven. And I couldn’t see the source of it. It must have been coming from somewhere inside, from a need to prove something to herself.”

“You say that Devon is very hard on herself. What is it like being her coach? Does she take constructive criticism well, for instance?”

“Yes, she does. She’s very coachable. Whenever I point out mistakes any of my players make, I also give them ideas of how they can fix them or do things differently. Devon’s the kind of player who, when a similar situation pops up again, she’ll make the correction. It’s almost like she’s looking for the opportunity to put the advice into practice.”

“Okay, but when you said Devon’s ‘hard on herself,’ what did you mean, exactly?”

“She hates to make mistakes. She doesn’t cut herself any slack. Absolutely none.”

“And how does she demonstrate this lack of ‘cutting herself slack’?”

Coach Mark doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “She gets very quiet. Very broody. During a game, if she gives up a goal, for example, because she made what she’d perceived as a mistake in judgment or timing, she doesn’t seem to allow it to affect her play while the game’s on. It just sort of rolls off of her. But afterward, when the game’s over, she’ll go off by herself. And you get the impression that she doesn’t want to be disturbed, that you should just leave her alone for a while.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dougherty.” Dom steps back to her seat. “I have no further questions.”

Mr. Floyd leaps to his feet.

“I take it, Mr. Floyd,” Judge Saynisch says, “that the State wants to examine this witness?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Then proceed.”

“Mr. Dougherty,” the prosecutor starts, “you’ve spoken very admiringly about the respondent—what leadership she’s demonstrated, what a team player she is. How driven. How smart. How reliable. You’ve praised her work ethic, but have said nothing of her
ethics.
Her trustworthiness. Her proclivity to tell the truth. Do you have an opinion to offer on that issue?”

“Yes,” Coach Mark says. “I’ve never known Devon to be untrustworthy.”

“Oh?” The prosecutor paces in front of the witness stand. “So you feel that someone who has deceitfully hidden her pregnancy from everyone around her, has conceived a plot to murder—”

“Objection! Your Honor—”

“No, Ms. Barcellona,” the judge says, “I’d like to hear Mr. Dougherty’s response.”

Coach Mark rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t believe that’s been proven yet.”

“Fair enough. Then let’s go back for a moment to January of this year, Mr. Dougherty. Did the respondent injure herself during a practice session?”

“Yes, she hit her head on the goalpost and injured her shoulder.”

“And, subsequently, did the respondent tell you that she had visited a doctor who had diagnosed these injuries and outlined a treatment plan?”

“Yes, she did.”

“What did the respondent tell you that diagnosis was?”

“A concussion and a subluxed shoulder.”

“And what did the respondent tell you about the treatment for these injuries?”

Coach Mark takes in a breath. “Because of the concussion, Devon told me that she wouldn’t be able to practice for at least four weeks. And she’d need to visit a physical therapist three times a week, I think it was, for about six weeks for her shoulder.”

“Did the respondent bring you a note from her doctor? A written excuse of some sort?”

“No, but I’ve been around soccer long enough to know that concussions aren’t anything to mess around with. What Devon told me sounded exactly right.”

“What would you say, Mr. Dougherty, if I told you that the respondent’s medical files contain no record of a doctor’s diagnosis for any injuries during that time period? That there exists no referral for a physical therapist?”

“Then I would say that perhaps Devon’s medical files are incomplete.”

“Let me get this straight, Mr. Dougherty. You mean to tell me that you believe these records were somehow misplaced? Or not included?”

“Not at all.” Coach Mark sits forward in his seat. “What I’m saying is this—in the five years that I’ve coached Devon, I have
never
known her to skip practice without a valid reason. In fact, I can’t think of a time that she’s missed training for
any
reason. She has come to my practices coughing and sneezing. She’s jammed her fingers so badly that she was unable to practice in the goal, but she’d come anyway to work out with the field players or just shag balls, if that’s all she could do. I don’t need a doctor’s excuse, and I don’t need medical records. If Devon said she had to miss practice for a couple of weeks, then I believe she had a good reason for it. No matter what explanation she actually gave me.”

“If the respondent had told you that she was pregnant, you would’ve helped her out. Correct, Mr. Dougherty?”

“Man.” Coach Mark sits back in his seat. He shakes his head slightly. “If Devon had trusted me enough to confide that fact to me,” he says softly, “yes. I would’ve done anything and everything I could think of to help her.”

Devon looks up at him. Their eyes meet.

Devon sees so much hurt there, so much regret.

Still holding Devon’s eyes, Coach Mark says, “I would’ve told her that I was one hundred percent there for her. She wouldn’t have had to try to fix her problem alone.”

Devon feels chills shoot up her spine. She drops her eyes to her lap.

“But she didn’t give you that opportunity. Did she, Mr. Dougherty?”

Coach Mark sighs sadly. “No,” he says, barely audible. “No, she did not.”

“I have no further questions.”

After Coach Mark leaves the courtroom, Dom leans over, places her hand on top of Devon’s, whispers in her ear. “You doing okay?”

Devon shrugs. She squeezes her eyes shut.

“We can ask for a short break if you need it.”

“No, I’ll be okay.”

Dom pats Devon’s hand, then stands. “Your Honor, the Defense calls Ms. Deborah Evans.”

The woman steps up to the front, raises her right hand. When she’s seated in the witness stand, she catches Devon’s eye. Gives her a small smile.

Devon bites her lip. She can’t return the smile.

Dom begins her battery of questions. In response, Debbie tells her that her full name is Deborah Lynn Evans. That she’s worked for more than ten years as the copresident and escrow manager at the Puget Sound Title Company in University Place. And that she knows Devon because Devon had babysat for her family on and off over the past two years. “But last summer,” she says “from the middle of June up until the middle of August, Devon babysat full-time during the day while I was at work. Every day from about eight A.M. until around five P.M.”

Dom nods. “And how many children do you have, Ms. Evans?”

“Two. A set of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Their names are Dayton and Danica.”

“And how old were the twins during the time that Devon was watching them?”

“They were three years old. Just turned three in April.”

Dom paces in front of the witness stand. “Toddler twins. Wow. That’s a huge job, Ms. Evans. And you believed that Devon, at age fifteen, could handle this sort of responsibility?”

“Of course.” Debbie frowns. “I would never have hired Devon otherwise. The previous summer, I had hired a college student attending the University of Puget Sound to be our nanny. Let me just put it this way—without going into detail—Devon exhibited much more common sense and maturity, let alone fortitude under stress, at age fifteen than that other girl did at age twenty.” Debbie smiles then. “Plus, the twins absolutely love her.”

“Ms. Evans, you say the twins ‘absolutely love her.’ Based on your observations of Devon with your children, how did she treat them?”

“She was just a lot of fun. She played games with them, whatever they wanted to play. She read books to them, put them in their double stroller and pushed them to the library for story hour or just to hang out there. She took them to the pool—we’re members of the Tacoma Swim Club, only a few blocks from our house. Fed them lunch. I’d come home after work, and on the refrigerator or the kitchen table, there’d be art projects they did together. Devon was just wonderful with them.”