That Night (26 page)

“What’s this?”

“It’s an essay. I wrote it last semester. Just read it, please.” She walked out, the door swinging shut behind her.

I glanced down at the essay. It was titled “That Night.”

*   *   *

When I got home after work, I took the papers out of my bag. I was tempted for a moment to burn them or chuck them out. What did I care what this girl wrote about me? But I was curious. Sure, I’d had letters from people over the years who said they believed in my innocence, but they were all fruit loops or fame junkies or kids in law school who wanted to prove themselves—until they found someone else who had a more interesting story, until they decided that maybe I
was
guilty.

I sat at my little table and stared at the essay, then thought,
Fuck it
, and started reading. It was well written, a thoughtful look at the whole case. She’d talked to some of my old teachers and friends, waitresses at the restaurant, even Nicole’s friends, including Darlene Haynes. And my friend Amy, who told her how Shauna and her friends had bullied me. It was unnerving, how adult Ashley came across, how in many ways she
did
seem to get it, that I was just an angry teenager who fought with my sister but it didn’t mean I killed her. She’d even talked to Ryan’s father. She’d tried to talk to mine but my mom closed the door in her face.

Ashley also wrote about the trial, how the most damaging testimony had come from Shauna and the other girls—my known enemies. They were popular, and I was the underdog. She referenced some psychobabble about teen girls turning on each other, the viciousness and pack mentality that can arise, how gossip can become truth in people’s minds. She cited some cases where it had been proven later that people gave false testimony against someone they didn’t like, and questioned if Shauna and her friends had lied. At the bottom, she also speculated about the real murderer, and whether Ryan and I could be innocent. She finished by saying, “Whoever the murderer is, wherever he is, he didn’t just end one life that night—he ended three.”

The next day at work I left the essay in Ashley’s bag with a note stuck to it:
Good writing, but I can’t do the documentary. Sorry.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

C
AMPBELL
R
IVER

S
EPTEMBER
1996

The police tried to talk to me a couple of times over that weekend. They’d bring me out of my cell, then sit me in that same room, the heat jacked up, offering me water or a cigarette, trying to be my friend. I’d take both, puffing on the smoke, which only made me more anxious. I never saw Frank McKinney again, but before I was arrested my mother had left him several messages that he didn’t return. Mom would pace in the kitchen, the phone tight in her hand, saying, “Frank, I just need to know that you’ll find whoever did this.”

Hicks was the one who interviewed me. He’d tell me again about all the evidence they had stacked against us and how much easier things would go for me if I just cooperated with them. I kept my mouth shut. I thought about Ryan and how he was faring. It was taking all my strength not to defend myself, not to tell Hicks to fuck off, but I had a feeling Ryan would handle the interrogations okay. He was used to people and teachers giving him a hard time.

Finally it was Monday and I was brought before the provincial judge. My lawyer said Ryan was probably coming in after us. My parents were in the courthouse, my dad in a suit and my mom in dress pants and a blouse, her hair pulled back. They both looked nervous, their faces strained. I thought I’d find out about bail that day, but now my lawyer explained what he hadn’t wanted to tell me on Friday. This was just to set a bail hearing with a Supreme Court judge. That would take another couple of weeks. Meanwhile I’d be in custody at the pretrial center over in Vancouver, in the women’s unit. I was going to jail. I listened to the judge asking my lawyer questions, talking about things like disclosure, but I couldn’t grasp anything, couldn’t stop thinking about jail. What would happen there? Would I get beaten up? What about Ryan? Would he be hurt?

I’d been transported by sheriffs that morning to the courthouse, and they took me now in one of their vans to the airport. I watched the world go by, already feeling separate, removed from the people going about their day, on their way to work or home, carrying on with their lives.

I’m going to jail. I’m going to jail, to jail, to jail.

The pretrial center was a terrifying place, concrete and institutional. Because of my age, I was held in protective custody, placed in a cell with heavy metal doors and a small window. I sat on my bed and cried so hard I threw up. They brought food later, dry tasteless stuff that I couldn’t eat. The next days were a blur. I sat scared in my cell most of the time, sometimes venturing out to the TV room but leaving when the news came on because I’d see an anchorman talking about me with photos of my dead sister up on the screen, or a shot of my parents’ anguished faces as they left the courtroom, or my high school photo. The other women in protective custody gave me curious looks, but no one talked to me. They just whispered in their little groups.

Two weeks later I was brought before the Supreme Court judge. My lawyer, Angus, argued that I wasn’t a flight risk, pointing to my parents, saying I didn’t have the means to run away, didn’t have a record. Though Angus was heavy, moved awkwardly, and sometimes seemed to drift off midsentence, he spoke so passionately and eloquently on my behalf I began to hope that maybe everything would be okay, that maybe we could win at trial.

I was granted bail, but I had to stay in the holding cell at the courthouse for a couple more days until my parents were approved as guarantors. Then I was brought before the judge again and had to agree to all the conditions. I’d have to meet with a bail supervisor weekly, continue to live at my parents’, not drink or do any drugs, have a curfew, hand over my passport, not leave the jurisdiction of the court—but the worst was that I wasn’t allowed to have any contact “directly or indirectly with co-accused except through legal counsel.” I started to cry when Angus explained later that it meant I couldn’t communicate with Ryan until we went to trial, cried even harder when he said it could take a couple of years to get a date. My only hope was that something would happen in the meantime. There would be a break in the case and we’d go free.

“Angus is the best,” my father said on the tense ride home from the bail hearing. “The best lawyer on the island.” He was saying it forcefully, like he was trying to convince himself. My mom glanced over, watching his face, then gazed back out the window. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I saw her trace a small symbol in the condensation in the window and remembered how she and Nicole used to play tic-tac-toe on the windows when we went on road trips.

That night they came into my room after dinner. My dad was pale, and my mom looked like she’d been crying. Dad sat on my bed, Mom at my desk.

“Why do the police think you did it, Toni?” Her voice was anguished. “What did
you do
?”

“Nothing! Shauna and her friends, they lied and said they saw us fighting with Nicole. But it’s not true. I didn’t even
see
them out there.”

My dad was staring at me, like he was trying to look into my soul.

I met his eyes. “Dad, I swear we did
not
do this. I could never hurt Nicole like that. The way she died…” I was crying now, hating the look in their faces, the fear, wondering if their daughter was a killer. “The girls are lying. They
hate
me—I told you they were coming into the restaurant all the time.”

I could see him thinking it through, remembering. He sat back, looking relieved. “Then it will get cleared up. Angus, he’ll be able to sort this out.”

Mom said, “But the police, they must have more reasons to think Toni … to think…” She started to cry, her hands shaking as she tried to wipe away the tears.

“No, I mean, they said other stuff, like about scratches and DNA, but that’s just because we were in the bushes and we touched Nicole, to help her, but we didn’t do anything to her.” I was babbling, talking desperately, my voice pleading through my own sobs. “
Please
, Mom, you have to believe me.”

My dad reached over and grabbed my hand. “We believe you, honey.” He looked at my mom. “It’s going to be okay, Pam. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

She nodded but she was staring at my outstretched arm, her face haunted, almost scared, and I knew she was remembering the scratches from that night.

I said, “Mom, you believe me, right?”

She met my eyes, blinked a couple of times. “Your father’s right. It’s going to be okay. If you didn’t do anything, there’s nothing to be worried about.” She stood up. “I have to go to bed.”

The next months passed by slowly. I thought of Ryan all the time and wrote him epic letters that I couldn’t send or pass to him. Amy came by to see me a couple of times, then stopped. Her mom didn’t want her coming over, said that Amy associating with me was making them look bad. Amy said, “I’m really sorry, Toni. I totally don’t think you and Ryan did it, but…” I told her I understood, but I felt marooned at home, with parents who were still struggling with their own grief, missing my sister, missing my boyfriend. I’d lost my job—not being able to work nights made it impossible. Mike had told me I shouldn’t worry about it. “When you’re cleared, you can come back, okay?” I loved that he said it, but as far as I knew the police weren’t pursuing any leads.

Three months after our bail hearing there was a preliminary hearing, then a month later the judge decided there was enough evidence for a trial and gave us a date for the end of February 1998, over a year away. It felt like an eternity. I met with my lawyer often, and I knew Ryan was meeting with his. My parents had put up sureties of a hundred thousand so I could get bail and said Ryan’s family had been able to do it too—their house had almost been paid for—which made me feel bad when I thought of his mom always working late at the hospital. I overheard my parents fighting about money, but they’d stop talking when I entered the room. I started working with my dad again, and that was the only time I felt somewhat normal, taking my anger out with the tools. But then I’d see Dad space out in the middle of a project, his face suddenly stricken, like he’d been stabbed, and I knew he was thinking about Nicole, and that his only living child had been arrested for her murder.

The worst was when I’d catch Mom or Dad watching me. I’d see a hint of something in their faces, like they were gauging me, and I’d know that they were wondering if I
had
done it. One night, late, Mom stumbled away to their room smelling like wine and Dad stayed in the living room. I sat by him on the couch. He glanced over, gave me a tired smile.

I took a breath, then said, “You still believe me, right, Dad?”

He looked confused for a moment, then held my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Of course. I know you’d never want to hurt Nicole.” It bothered me that he’d said I wouldn’t
want
to hurt her, not that I
wouldn’t
hurt her, but I was scared to ask anything more and dropped the subject. At our trial, he’d see.

*   *   *

The trial lasted two weeks. I was allowed to sit with Ryan in the prison docket and we held hands, tight. I wanted to cry when we were first seated together, our eyes roaming each other’s faces, searching out the other’s emotions, saying everything without words.
I still love you, I miss you, I’m scared.
And the trial was terrifying. I felt helpless, listening to people talk about us, analyzing all of our actions. We were only going before a judge, not a jury—our lawyers didn’t feel we were sympathetic enough for a jury. Angus had tried to get me not to look so angry, made me practice smoothing my face into a neutral mask, showed me how to sit and talk, polite and sweet, told me what clothes to wear, but he said I still looked pissed off at the world, a girl with a bad attitude. And I saw it now on Ryan’s face. Before, he’d looked like he could brush off anything, nothing would get him down, but already his jaw was tighter, his neck corded from clenching. I grabbed his hand, and noticed some small circular red scars. I stared at him, horrified. Ryan quickly turned his hand around, hiding it from view, but I knew what I’d seen. Cigarette burns. I wondered if he’d done them himself, or if his father had been taking his anger out on him for the last year and a half. I didn’t even know if Ryan had been working anywhere or what he’d been doing.

I listened to experts explain about DNA, listened to Doug Hicks and Frank McKinney talk about the night we’d stumbled into the police station. McKinney didn’t look at me once while he was speaking, his voice calm and controlled, sounding like a cop. He only got emotional a couple of times when he described how Nicole had become friends with his daughter, how she’d been at his home often and he knew she was having problems with her sister. Something Shauna was more than happy to back up when it came her time to testify.

Shauna looked beautiful that day. Her auburn hair gleamed against her chic black suit, and her eyes had never looked bluer than when they spilled tears down her face as she talked about Nicole, how close they were, close enough for Nicole to share about the knife I’d been carrying. A knife Shauna said I’d threatened Nicole with on many occasions. The lies went on and on.

Rachel also testified, backing up Shauna’s version of everything, tossing her hair with every declaration. “I mean, like, we knew Toni hated Nicole, but we never knew she’d do
that
, you know?” And Cathy cried so hard that the lawyers had a hard time getting anything out of her. She just sobbed into her Kleenex, saying over and over again, “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

Kim stumbled over her words when she verified what the other girls had said, that they were out at the lake that night and “clearly” saw me fighting with Nicole, saw Ryan trying to pull us apart. “I keep thinking about that moment,” Kim said, her eyes dead and flat. “If we’d gone to help her … but we didn’t want to interfere. We were all scared of Toni, especially because we knew she carried a knife and she’d already attacked Shauna at school a couple of times.…”