With Malice (25 page)

My throat tightened, and a tear ran down my face. “I'm sorry,” I said, pushing the words out.

“Hey, now, this meeting got serious, and I brought us together because I had good news,” Evan said.

Dad pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. Everyone's a bit on edge.”

Evan patted my dad's arm. “No worries. Understandable. Situations like this are hard. But the good news is things are turning around.”

“You mentioned the media company,” Mom said.

“Yes,” Evan turned to me. “We hired Levy, Robar, and Ullman. They're one of the best in the business. They handle everything from media releases to making sure an alternate view of the story is spun out to the public. You've seen how these things happen online; they turn into a feeding frenzy. It's like there's blood in the water. Often the only thing it takes is one or two comments on a site giving an alternate view, a more tempered, humane view, and people wake up and realize they're being animals. It dials down the rhetoric.”

“You said earlier that the public is focusing on Nico?” Dad asked.

Evan nodded. “Yep. It's hard to get people to like someone they've decided they dislike. The best way to get people away from thinking of you as the bad guy is to give them another bad guy.” Evan spread his hands. “Nico makes for a great villain.”

I felt a momentary wave of pity for Nico, but it passed quickly. I owed him no allegiance. “But the police aren't going to care, are they? They don't think Nico was involved,” I said.

“No, but the fact he lied about the car makes them uncomfortable. Plus, they didn't find it out right away, so they look stupid for missing it. Besides, they've got bigger problems. Check this out.” Evan pulled out his MacBook from his bag and opened it, spinning it to face my parents and me. “This video was released on Italian TV yesterday.” He paused. “It shows the accident scene. Are you okay with that?”

I nodded. I didn't want to be left out. I stared at the screen, hoping I looked calm.

At first the camera shot was out of focus and jumpy, someone's camera phone—it was a road, winding down the side of a hill. There was someone talking, but it was in Italian, and I couldn't make out what they were saying. The voice sounded like a mix between anxious and excited. The person stopped running and pointed the camera down, past the edge of the wall that ran alongside the road, and you could see the car.

It was the same car I'd seen in the earlier photo. Some kind of red hatchback. It must have landed almost nose down, as the front half was accordioned in and one side was dented and scratched where it must have dragged along the wall before busting through. A tree branch had impaled the car, going in one side and coming out the back window, like it had grown there.

There were rescue people all over. One guy was almost completely in the car, his back legs sticking out of the passenger side window. People were screaming and pointing. It didn't seem to me anyone was in charge.

A group of paramedics suddenly stood to the side of the car, a stretcher between them, and scrambled up the side of the hill toward the person holding the camera. The police waved the camera off, but they kept filming. I couldn't make out much, but I could tell from the hair it was me they had on the stretcher.

My mom covered her mouth and looked away. I felt like I should too, but it was sickly fascinating. The stretcher, with me strapped on it, was shoved into an ambulance, which took off. The camera focused back on the hill. The urgency seemed to have gone down. People were still surrounding the car, but they were just standing there. Some peering into the car from the busted-out windows. The person holding the camera drew closer to the accident, panning the side of the car. I realized I could make out that there was someone slumped forward in the front passenger seat.

Not someone. Simone.

There were a few police officers there. One handed the other something, sliding it into a bag. I leaned forward as if I could make the camera go closer, but that was when Evan leaned forward and stopped the video. He crossed his arms and looked proud of himself. I didn't get it. This was the great news? I glanced at my parents. From their expressions, I could tell they didn't get it either.

“Did you see that?” Evan backed up the video by a few seconds and let it play again.

“Is that the knife?” my dad asked.

Evan nodded. “Yep, but that's not what's important. Here, watch it again.”

“I'm not really sure what it is we're supposed to be seeing.” My dad's voice was tight, and I could tell he was quickly getting tired of this game. He wasn't interested in guessing.

“The police officer isn't wearing gloves,” Evan said. He played it one more time so we could see for ourselves. “He just reaches in and pulls it out. The other officer isn't wearing gloves either. That's Cop 101. My best guess is that they don't see a lot of crime way out there, and when they first arrive at the scene, they're thinking it's just an accident. By the time they start thinking there's been a crime, they've already screwed it up. See that? The knife isn't tagged or secured. It's just sitting in a bag on the ground while they collect other evidence, and look at all these people.” Evan motions to the frozen image on the screen. “They've had paramedics in and out, and that's one thing, but then you can see there are a couple of locals who must have shown up immediately after the car went over to help. They're all over the place.”

“That was nice of them,” Mom said, ever one to be polite.

“Nice, sure, but in the official record, the police never cataloged any of their names. We have no idea who those people were. What if one of them was connected to Nico? What exactly did they touch? And they didn't secure the scene after. The person taking this video gets right up to the car.”

“What does all of this mean?” I ask.

“It means the cops screwed up. They've got mishandling of evidence, failure to secure a scene. On cross-examination, we're going to be able to hit them over and over with these details. It's one thing if I'd brought it up—I'd suspected as much from their report of the scene—but this video is a gold mine. Seeing is believing. By the time we're done, they're not going to be able to keep the knife in evidence. It's too compromised. There's no way to say for sure how many people might have touched it, how it might have been cross-contaminated. Sure, it's got Jill's fingerprints on it, but there are also a bunch of unidentified partials. Even Simone's prints are on there.”

“That's really good, isn't it?” My mom was leaning forward in her seat, like she wanted to be excited but wasn't sure she should give herself permission.

“This is great news. The knife is a significant portion of their case that goes toward intent. There's no doubt there was an accident and that Jill was driving, but their ability to prove that this was intentional has been built on a house of cards. It always was, but any dent we put in their wall of circumstantial evidence makes the whole thing likely to fall down.”

“But won't they still look at the accident?” Dad said.

Evan tapped my dad in the center of the chest. “
Accident
is the key word. I'm not saying the girls didn't have a fight. They might have—there was certainly a lot going on for them—and of course there was a car accident, but if there's no clear proof that Jill stabbed Simone, then why assume it's anything more than a tragedy?”

“But Simone was stabbed, wasn't she?” I asked. “I mean, she had a stab wound.”

“We'll see if their medical expert can stand by that once we start cross-examination. Simone's body was really badly damaged in the accident. Pinning particular injuries to being caused by the knife versus glass or metal in the car will be challenging—hell, the gearshift tore through part of the palm of her hand.”

Evan stopped suddenly as if he'd just realized sounding gleeful over how messed up Simone had been was in poor taste. “Even their theory of motivation, that this was driven by rage over the situation with Nico, is pretty flimsy,” Evan continued. “What's to say this was anything more than a girl spat? We can line up miles of witnesses who will testify to how close you two were. The onus is on them to prove that you'd throw away a decade-plus of friendship out the window for a guy you'd known a bit more than a week. They're hinging everything on meeting the legal term of having done something with malice aforethought. That you wanted to do something badly, and you planned it. They've got nothing to back that up. Nothing.”

Hope bloomed in my chest, like a high-speed video of a flower expanding and growing.

POLICE STATEMENT FROM KATE MURPHY, FELLOW STUDENT IN THE ADVENTURES ABROAD PROGRAM

Transcript to be provided to Italian police

The last time any of us saw either of them was that morning. Ms. Ochoa had a lecture first thing on how the area had been impacted by the war and the Italian resistance. We were all going to see a movie that night, something with Cher and that lady from
Downton Abbey.
The title was
Tea with
 . . . somebody. She gave us the rest of the morning off. We had a drive in the afternoon to go see something, I can't remember because after everything that happened, we never ended up going.

Ms. Ochoa sent Jill and Simone on an errand to pick up stuff to make sandwiches for a picnic lunch we could take with us. They still weren't really talking to each other yet. I think Ms. Ochoa thought if she gave them a project to do together, then they'd have to talk and they'd work stuff out.

Neither of them seemed upset to be sent on the errand. I mean, they didn't look thrilled, but it wasn't like they were super mad about it either. I never thought anything bad would happen.

POLICE STATEMENT FROM ABIGAIL JOHNSON, FELLOW STUDENT IN THE ADVENTURES ABROAD PROGRAM

Transcript to be provided to Italian police

Simone was pissed that she was going to get stuck making sandwiches for the trip. First because with what the program cost—why did we have to make our own? Second, because Jill was still giving her the cold shoulder. Simone told me that she knew Jill was waiting for her to apologize, but that if she would only get her head out of her ass, Jill would realize that Simone had only kissed Nico to make her see what a douche-canoe he really was. Simone had tried to tell her a bunch of times before, but Jill wouldn't listen. She was talking about how she was going to move to Italy and defer college for a year, and Simone was pissed. She said Jill was too smart to be that stupid, but Jill wouldn't listen, so Simone did something Jill couldn't ignore.

I thought it was pretty harsh, but Simone kept saying the ends justified the means and that she did what she had to do and wasn't going to be sorry. She kept saying, “A girl's gotta do what a girl has to do.”

So then Ms. Ochoa got the brilliant plan for them to make the sandwiches. I never understand why adults act like they know what's best all the time. If I don't want to hang out with someone, then don't make me. Why did she have to force it? They were already stuck rooming together. Why make them spend more time together? It was stupid. I saw Jill's face when Ms. Ochoa told them, and she looked really angry. I knew something bad was going to go down. You could just tell.

MEDIA INTERVIEW WITH ANTONIO CONTI, LOCAL RESIDENT, MONTEPULCIANO, ITALY

English subtitles prepared by Euro-news Services

I own with my wife a small wine bar, Carmelo, in Montepulciano. We have several local wines for tasting, and we make small snacks, bruschettas, marinated olives, breads, meats for platters. We get some tourists, but we are a bit tucked away, so most of our business is locals. The hotel had called me to say some students would be down to pick up items for a picnic lunch. The charges were to go to the hotel.

The girls came in. Both so
bellissime.
(Kisses the tips of his fingers.) One tall and blond, the other dark and curvy. Like beautiful bookends. But, oh, the scowls. You could feel the tension between the two of them—like electricity. Snap! My daughters were like this growing up. It would be like waiting for a thunderstorm to break in the house. Dark, charged, and everyone just wanting the first loud crack of thunder to start and then things could blow over. I said to my wife, “Look, they are just like Sophia and Fiametta,” and we chuckled a bit.

I gave both girls a glass of wine on the house along with some bread and oil. This olive oil is made by my brother-in-law. The best in the region, I tell you. I thought it would be nice to have them stay a bit longer. It is good for business to have beautiful girls sitting at your tables. And if they like our café, perhaps they tell their school friends, and all of them will come back later.

The blond girl drank all her wine—whoop—in one big drink. Like life is short. The dark girl sipped hers, more careful. At first they were totally silent. Then the blond one talked. My wife and I don't speak much English. My daughters are much better; they live in Florence and work in fashion—lots of English there. But me, not so much. I do know the blond girl said sorry. This word I know in English. She said it several times. They went back and forth several times. I don't know what all they were saying, but even without language, you can feel the tension, no? I even said to my wife—“I bet you a boy is at the heart of this.” I had of course no idea, but it seemed like that kind of fight. (Thumps chest.) You can feel passion here, even if you don't know the language.