By Blood Written (37 page)

She looked over to her right, where a tall, graying man and a younger woman assistant already sat with files and notepads piled in front of them. The man looked tired and a little rumpled, Taylor thought. The young woman seemed well-scrubbed and bright, almost eager.

Suddenly the door to the right of the elevated judge’s bench opened and an elderly man in a court officer’s uniform stepped through. “All rise,” he said loudly.

A rustle echoed through the courtroom as everyone shuffled to his feet. “Davidson County Criminal Court Division Four,” the court officer continued, “of the Twentieth Judicial District of the State of Tennessee is now in session, the Honorable Judge Harry Forsythe presiding. God save this honorable court, the State of Tennessee, and these United States of America.”

A large man with a massive head, a long shock of graying hair down over a broad forehead, and large rheumy eyes stepped quickly through the doorway and took the three steps up to the bench quickly. He placed a bound portfolio on the bench, then arranged his robes and sat down in a large leather chair.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced in a sonorous voice that clearly was used to command. “We have quite a crowd in here this morning. I want to remind you all that I expect proper courtroom decorum as we get this trial under way. I also want to remind you that there are no cameras or recording devices of any kind allowed in this courtroom.

“And,” he added, smiling out over the crowd, “if I hear a cell phone go off in this room, it belongs to me. Believe me, I have quite a little collection of them. Couple of shoeboxes full, in fact. And for those of you with the fancy vibrate feature, if I see a cell phone answered in this room, the same rule applies.”

Taylor leaned down, stuck her hand in her purse, and pulled out her phone. She flipped it open, powered it down, then sat back up.

“Madame Clerk, do we have the proper forms completed for all pleadings and counsel of record?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” a slim woman said from a desk in front of the bench.

“Is counsel present?” Forsythe asked, his voice booming.

The lawyers rose. “Yes, Your Honor,” the tall man at the prosecutor’s table said. “District Attorney General T. Robert Collier for the state, with Assistant General Jane Sparks in assistance.”

“Wesley Talmadge for the defense, Your Honor, with Jim McCain and Mark Hoffman in assistance.”

“Very good,” Forsythe announced. “Are there any last-minute motions or pleadings before we get going?”

“Nothing for the state, Your Honor.”

“Nothing for the defense, Your Honor.”

“Then we’re ready to go. Bailiff, seat the jury.” The lawyers all sat back down.

Taylor took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly, trying to lessen the tension in her abdomen.

She’d forced herself to eat a bagel earlier, just to have something in her stomach. It tasted like cardboard. Her stomach rumbled. She hoped no one heard it.

The jury filed in from a door to the judge’s left. Taylor watched as the mixture of people, fourteen in all—twelve jurors and two alternates—took seats behind the jury box.

She scanned the faces: eight men, six women. Ten whites and four blacks. Three clearly older, four in their twenties or perhaps early thirties, the rest somewhere in the middle.

How odd
, she thought.
These are the people who can kill
my fiance.

“Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen,” the judge announced. “We’re going to get started here in a few moments, but first I want to remind you of a couple of things. First, you are not to discuss this case among yourselves or with anyone else. You are not to form an opinion until all the evidence has been presented and I have instructed you in the law and given you your charge. You will be sequestered for the length of this trial, and during that time, you will read nothing of this case in the media, either in newspapers or magazines or on television. As you know, this trial has drawn a great deal of media attention. It is your responsibility as jurors and citizens to neither expose yourself to all this attention nor take any of it into any consideration. Does everyone understand this?”

The jurors shook their heads, almost in time with one another.

“During these proceedings,” the judge continued, “you will be given an adequate number of breaks for meals and the necessities of nature. But if for any reason you need an extra or unscheduled break, simply make a motion to get the attention of the court officer and he will help you. You are not to talk among yourselves during the trial itself, although you may make notes as you see fit. You are also not to speak to any of the counsel, the defendant, or the witnesses during the course of these proceedings. If you have any questions or need any assistance with anything, just write a note and pass it along to the court officer, who will then give it to me.

Does everyone understand this?”

Again the jurors nodded. Taylor tried hard not to stare at them. She looked over at the defense table. Michael sat stoically, not moving, his face revealing nothing, his black, pin-striped suit pressed and professional. A very expensive consultant had advised him on the clothes to wear during the trial, how to cut his hair, how to look in front of the jury.

“Finally, to briefly go over the procedure again, we will begin with the state making an opening statement. During this statement, the district attorney general will outline the case that the state intends to present before you. An opening statement is just that, ladies and gentlemen, a statement. It is not evidence. It is not to be taken by you as fact or construed as evidence. It is simply outlining the case the state intends to make. Then the defense can make an opening statement, although they are not required to. They can also defer their opening statement until the state has completed making its case before you. If they choose not to make a statement or to defer their statement, you are to draw no inferences or conclusions about that as to the defendant’s innocence or guilt.

You are to make those conclusions based solely on the evidence presented in this courtroom and on the charge I will give you as to the law.”

Forsythe looked from the jury over to the defense table.

“Does the defense wish to have a formal reading of the charges at this time?”

Talmadge rose quickly. “The defense waives formal reading of the charges, Your Honor.”

“Very well. General Collier, you may proceed with your opening statement.”

The tall man rose slowly and walked to a wooden podium in the center of the room. Taylor thought it odd that he had no notes, that he was apparently going to speak off the cuff.

He walked with a slight stoop and seemed less imposing than when she had seen him on television.

But when he spoke, there was a firmness and an authority to his voice that was in sharp contrast to his tired demeanor.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began. “I’m Robert Collier, the district attorney general here in Nashville, and I’m not going to take up a lot of our time right now with an opening statement because I believe the facts of this case will speak for themselves. But before I do anything else, I want to thank you for your service as jurors. Jury service is one of our prime responsibilities as citizens of this great republic. We ask a lot of you as jurors. The fate of the defendant is in your hands. The victim’s cry for justice is in your hands. And the state’s responsibility to seek justice is in your hands as well.

“And that’s a great responsibility. That’s a heavy burden you bear. But it is one of the foundations of our society, as a civilized society, that when a crime is committed, justice must be sought. Some wrongs can never be righted, but a just and proper recompense to the victims and to society can only be found when those who commit great wrongs suffer a fair and just punishment for that wrong. Which is why we are here.

“Because on a cold and snowy—in fact, a freezing—Friday night last February, almost a year ago, two young, innocent women suffered a great wrong. Their lives were taken from them brutally, violently, and altogether too soon. They had their whole lives ahead of them. They were bright, beautiful young women just beginning their lives. They were working their way through college. They had parents and families who loved them. They had friends who loved them and have mourned their passing as a wound that can never be really healed.

“Their names were Sarah and Allison. Sarah Denise Burnham was nineteen years old. She was a sophomore down at Middle Tennessee State University where she was studying mass communications. Allison May Matthews was twenty-two. She was about to graduate from MTSU as well, with a degree in art history. Neither one of them had ever been in trouble before. They had good grades. They were close to their families. Allison attended a Baptist church close to the campus down there. Sarah hadn’t been to church in a while, but she was raised by God-fearing parents.”

Collier stepped out from behind the podium and paced back and forth slowly as he continued speaking. “But I don’t want you to get the idea that Sarah and Allison were perfect.

They were young and reckless and foolish, as many of us were when we were that age. Sarah and Allison had done something I wouldn’t have wanted them to do, something that I would never have wanted my own daughter to do.

Something their parents never knew about …

“They had gotten jobs working at a place down on Church Street here in Nashville, a place called Exotica Tans. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what is euphemistically referred to as an exotic tanning parlor, but what is, in fact, more commonly known as a massage parlor.”

Collier paused to let this sink in. “Yes, a massage parlor. You may find that shocking. I certainly did, given the background of these two young girls. But as witnesses will testify before you very soon, Allison and Sarah were not the kinds of girls who typically worked in places like these.

They were good girls who had foolishly gone astray in this one instance. Perhaps they could make more money this way than they could selling shoes in the mall. Perhaps they thought it was naughty and funny. Who knows?

“But one thing I do know, ladies and gentlemen, is that the place they were working was completely legal in the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee. The owner of that business, as distasteful as we might think it, paid his taxes and his license fees and his rent. We may not like it, folks, but it’s legal. And Sarah and Allison had a perfect right to be working there, as much as you and I might wish that they hadn’t.”

Collier paused here, as if studying the jury. Taylor could see he was trying to make eye contact with them, trying to reach them. She had thought initially that he seemed to be winging it.

Now she knew he wasn’t. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“You’re going to see some things here, ladies and gentlemen, and very soon, that are going to be hard for you to take in. For on that cold Friday night in February, someone—who we believe the evidence will show was the defendant, Michael Edward Schiftmann—entered Exotica Tans and murdered these two young girls. You’re going to see pictures of what the murderer did to these two young girls, and they’re going to be hard to look at. You’re going to hear experts testify as to the extent of their wounds and how much they suffered before death mercifully took them out of their pain.”

Collier turned and looked directly at the defense table, his stare hard and cold. Like stone, Taylor thought. A chill went through her as she watched the pallid man hold out a hand and point in Michael’s direction, then turn back to the jury as his voice rose:

“And you’re going to hear from a chain of witnesses, police officers, homicide investigators, forensic experts, and others who will trace the trail of Sarah’s and Allison’s blood from the place where they were brutally, mercilessly murdered to this man’s front door. We will present to you a chain of events and evidence that will establish beyond any reasonable doubt or exception that the man sitting here before you now took the lives of these two young, intelligent, beautiful women.”

Collier paused and took a breath, then lowered his voice and spoke calmly. “Now ladies and gentlemen, there are two kinds of evidence that you’re going to see here. The first is direct evidence. That’s the evidence given by eyewitnesses, experts, and others as to what they saw, what they did, what they personally can testify to from firsthand experience. The second kind of evidence is circumstantial evidence. This is evidence that requires us to examine it, and then deduce from what we see that something must have happened a certain way in order for what we just saw to be the way it is. This is evidence that requires us to make conclusions, draw inferences. This is evidence that forces us to think, to rely on our common sense, in order to discern the truth of something. If we come home from work and our spouse isn’t there and the car isn’t in the garage and the grocery list has been taken off the refrigerator door, then we deduce, or figure out, that our spouse has probably gone to the supermarket.

“Now in almost every criminal trial I’ve ever been involved in, the preponderance of evidence has been circumstantial, and this case is no exception. I’m going to tell you up front that we do not have a witness that places the defendant at the scene. No one saw the defendant kill Sarah and Allison. But we have other kinds of evidence that we will ask you to look at, and we believe and maintain that if you examine this evidence with a fair and open mind, you will conclude—as did we—that only one man could have committed these horrible deeds. Now I can’t put words in my esteemed colleague’s mouth as to what he’s going to say to you when he gets up here, but defense attorneys often try and convince you that circumstantial evidence is somehow less valid than direct evidence. That you should discount what you see because there’s no eyewitness to verify the results you conclude.

“Don’t let them, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t let them turn your eyes away from what you see and what you, with your intelligence and your common sense, have concluded must be the truth. You’re good people, you’re smart people, and you’ve taken on a tremendous responsibility. All the state can ask of you is that you use that common sense to give justice to Sarah and Allison, and to bring some peace and closure to their families and those who loved them.”