From then on the trial grew more and more in favor of the prosecution. The witnesses were being crueler to Zac, bring up minute details (some of which Zac was sure never happened) and blew them out of proportion to make it seem as though Zac could be the kind of person who was capable of killing his wife. It was all very subtle, each of the witnesses would casually mention it, but with the amount of them, it seemed the general public thought Zac was evil.
It wasn't until the beginning of September that the prosecution even mentioned the murder weapon, and when they did, they hit it with full force. They brought in specialists, cops who worked on the case, forensics, and anyone who knew anything about guns. The witnesses didn't seem too convincing until the prosecution called a fifty-one-year-old pawn shop owner based in the Bronx that was notorious for his large selection of Browning guns.
"State your name for the record."
"Jeffery Billet."
Jeff was a bald, tall white man with sketchy blue eyes and a beer belly. He'd aged terribly but was probably an attractive man in his prime. Everything currently about him, however, seemed creepy.
"Mr. Billet, do you know the accused Mr. Hanson?" the prosecuting lawyer asked.
"Of course I do. Who doesn't know Zachary Hanson?"
"I mean personally, Mr. Billet. Have you ever met him before?" Jeff nodded.
"Yeah. It was a couple of months ago--early May, probably--you don't forget a face like his. It's not every day a celebrity walks into your shop."
"What was he doing in your shop?"
"He was looking to buy a gun. He didn't know anything about guns, so he spent a while with me, asking all sorts of questions...He said he was looking for something to protect his family with."
"You didn't give him a gun right away, did you?"
"No. There's a waiting period--you've gotta do background checks and stuff. He had a clean record so when he came back I sold him his gun. He seemed very happy."
"Mr. Billet," the prosecuting lawyer said, "was this the gun you sold Zachary Hanson?" The lawyer presented Jeff with the alleged murder weapon. Jeff looked at it carefully.
"Yeah, that's the one."
At this point Mark turned to Zac. "What is this?" he asked his client.
"I have no idea," Zac answered. "I've never met this guy before in my life. I've never even been to the Bronx!"
Jeffery Billet went on to explain how Zac came back into the shop to buy some more ammunition shortly before the trip out to California. The bullets he described were the same as the ones found in the gun, and the one pulled out of Ginger. This left Mark floored, completely unprepared for a proper cross-examination. By the time the court was dismissed for the day, Mark was fuming mad. At the hotel he pulled Zac into their conference room and began to yell.
"What the hell was that?" Mark yelled.
"I don't know! I told you, I've never seen that man before! I've never been to the Bronx, I've never purchased a gun; I've never even thought about buying a gun before in my life!"
"Zac, they had security camera footage of you in the shop, holding the gun."
"The guy had a hat on; it could have been anybody!"
"It was you."
"It wasn't me."
"Are you lying to me?" Mark asked, sitting down in front of Zac. "Because if you are, I can't represent you the way you should be represented. If you did it or not doesn't matter; I'd defend you until the end even if I saw you do it myself, but dammit Zac you need to be honest with me."
"I am being honest with you," Zac said, trying to keep his voice down. "I didn't kill my wife." Mark let out a disgruntled breath. "You don't believe me! Their story is so good they've even convinced you. How the hell are we going to convince twelve people that I'm innocent when my own fucking lawyer is taken in by the bullshit story they're telling? If you don't believe me, Mark, maybe I need to find a lawyer who does."
"No, Zac," Mark said. "I believe you. I just don't know where this evidence is coming from."
"I don't know either; they're making it up."
"Who?"
"Well the prosecution, obviously. How else would they know all this phony crap about guns I supposedly purchased, ammo, and the guy who I know I've never met but apparently knows me quite well?"
"Yeah, but now we have to figure out how they did it." Zac shrugged.
"Mark, when am I going to be able to speak in my defense?"
"Soon...soon. We have to tackle this Jeffery Billet thing first," Mark said, standing. He began to pace and think.
"Well it just seems like they're saying all of this junk against me and I haven't had an opportunity to say that none of it is true. It almost seems kind of pointless now."
"It's not pointless, Zac," Mark said. "When you get up there you'll be able to defend everything about yourself. If we get you to say the right things and keep your cool, it'll be very powerful." Zac nodded. "Don't worry about it; it'll be good."
"It doesn't feel that way now," Zac said to himself. Mark didn't seem like he was doing a very good job at defending Zac's case. It was too late in the trial to switch lawyers or even to find one that was willing to take on a case of this magnititude, especially at this point it looked like Zac was losing.
"Don't worry."
"Don't worry? I'm looking at life in prison for a murder I didn't commit and from the way we are right now it looks like I'm actually going to serve it! I came here thinking I was going to do a nice TV show with my wife before her movie comes out and my tour starts, and then all of a sudden she's dead and I'm to blame! What the fuck is going on here, Mark?" Zac yelled.
"Calm down, Zac."
"I will not calm down! This is insane, Mark!"
"I know it is. I'm sitting there right next to you. This trial isn't over yet; we have plenty of time to win this thing, and we will." There was a knock at the door.
"Daddy, Auntie Kris says dinner's ready!" Jenny's little voice yelled through the door.
"Coming, Jenny!" Zac called back to his daughter. "It's Jenny's birthday next week. What am I supposed to do about that? Have a party here in the musty boring hotel room?"
"Zac, you can't exactly go anywhere."
"Yeah, I know. It just pisses me off, all right?" He paused. "Are we done here?"
"Yeah," Mark said. Zac stood up and left the room. The family gathered in the makeshift dining room of the hotel suite they were still staying in. Zac had told Kris and Taylor they could go home whenever they wanted to now that neither of them were to take the stand again, but they insisted on staying to take care of Jenny with her nanny that Zac had brought in from New York, and to provide support for Zac. Zac was grateful--he didn't really want them to leave anyway.
Jenny climbed into her father's lap. He let her, enjoying every moment he had with her, and piled extra food on his plate so he and Jenny could eat off it together.
"Daddy, when are we going home?" Jenny asked.
"Soon, darlin. Are you excited about your birthday next week?"
"No," Jenny bluntly said. The family around the table paused to look at the little girl.
"Why not?" Zac asked, oblivious to the stares of the family.
"Because there are more important things than my birthday." Zac sat back, looked away, and bit his lip to keep himself from crying. Jenny had grown up way too fast. She was supposed to be excited about her eighth birthday, not worried about her father's trial and everything else that was going wrong in their lives.
"Well if I were you, I'd be pretty excited," Zac said after composing himself. "It's not every day you turn eight years old." Jenny only shrugged. Zac sighed. This was exactly what he didn't want to happen.
The day before Jenny's birthday Zac finally got to take the stand in his defense. He and Mark had been discussing the strategy for the past week, going over general rules and what kind of story they were willing to give. It was all that was going through Zac's mind as he was sworn in. He sat down and faced the people of the court.
He'd performed in front of thousands, tens of thousands even, but he'd never felt as petrified as he did at that moment. Behind the lawyer's desks, the audience was packed with people Zac did and didn't know, then scrunched in the back and off to the side with their lenses zoomed as much as possible, was Court TV. He'd all but forgotten there were cameras in the coutroom, recording everything. With as many cameras as they had in there, Zac was sure one was always pointed at him.
"Please state your name for the record."
"Zachary Hanson," Zac said, surprised at his voice. He couldn't believe he had a voice with this much nervous tension coursing through him.
"Mr. Hanson, where were you the night your wife was killed, June ninth of this year?"
"I was with her in the park just down the street from our hotel." Zac watched the prosecuting lawyer as he paced (mostly for dramatic effect) before he asked his next question. Zac hadn't really seen this man in action, mostly because Zac's eyes were usually pointed towards the floor, not at his enemy. However, now that Zac was on the stand in his defense, that kind of behavior wasn't appropriate. Already Zac knew he didn't like this man.
"So you were present when she was murdered?"
"Yes."
"Would you care to tell the court, in your own words, what happened?"
"Well, Ginger and I were walking through the park. It was sunset, actually, by the time it happened it was getting quite dark out. She said she was getting a weird feeling, so I suggested we go back to the hotel. As soon as we turned around there was this...this loud crack of some sort and I felt Ginger go down."
"A crack?"
"Yes, a crack."
"Like a gunshot?"
"Yeah, well now we know that's what it was," Zac said.
"Did you see anybody?" Zac shook his head.
"No."
"Well there had to be somebody else there, because if you didn't do it, and Ginger didn't do it, then somebody must have," the lawyer said.
"Yes, there must have been somebody else there. Ginger said she heard something in the bushes. I just personally didn't see anyone." The lawyer nodded; he was moving on but Zac was sure this wasn't the end of the questions about that night.
"How long were you and Ginger married before she died?"
"Almost seven years," Zac replied. "Our anniversary was just a few days after she died."
"So that would make you eighteen when you got married."
"Yes."
"That's very young," the lawyer said. "How old is your daughter Jennifer?"
"She'll be eight tomorrow."
"So Jennifer was born before the two of you got married?"
"Yes."
"Would you say you got married because of your daughter?" Zac shook his head.
"No. It was one of the reasons, yes, but it wasn't the reason we got married. Ginger and I had been talking about marriage even before she got pregnant."
"But it was a reason," the lawyer pressed.
"Yes. One of the many."
"Okay." Moving on, Zac thought. "When you were sixteen, you and Ginger broke up for a short time." Zac restrained himself from shifting awkwardly in his seat. Mark said to keep the fidgeting down to a minimum, especially when an unpleasant topic came up.
"Yes," Zac responded.
"Why?" Zac resisted the urge to say "Taylor already told you that."
"She was having an affair with my brother Taylor," Zac said, hiding his bitterness. He hadn't been bitter before this trial started, but now that everything was resurfacing, he found himself mad at his brother again. He would have liked to be mad at Ginger but she was dead. Taylor was usually the easy person to blame.
"How did you find out about the affair?" the lawyer asked.
"Ginger and Kris were in town; Ginger stayed with me while Kris stayed with Taylor in his apartment. I went over to the apartment--it was some random reason because I'm always going over there--and I walked in. I heard Kris and Taylor talking in the living room but I didn't pay attention until they started talking about Ginger. I walked into the living room and I just overheard Taylor say to Kris 'I was sleeping with Ginger.' "
"What did you do then?"
"Taylor saw me and I kind of ran out of the apartment. He tried to stop me at the front door and I ended up hitting him before I went home as quickly as possible. I saw Ginger there, looking very innocent, and I immediately broke up with her. I was just mad; it was the biggest mistake of my life."
"But the two of you did get back together?"
"Yeah. I ran into her almost six months later at a music store in Tampa, where she's from, and we had a long discussion before we decided to get back together."
"But it took you two years to talk to your brother again! How could you forgive Ginger so easily, if you really forgave her at all?"
"Of course I forgave her," Zac said. "With Ginger it was different. I knew she loved me and I knew she was genuinely sorry. It happened once--with Taylor he'd done this sort of things a number of times, and Ginger was the last straw. I had every intention of never speaking to him again, but he changed into a completely different person when he met Kris."
"So things with you and your brother are fine again?"
"Yes."
"Even with the kiss?"
"The what?" Zac asked.
"The kiss between Taylor and Ginger that took place about a week before she died." Zac's eyes drifted over to Taylor, sitting in the audience with his arm around Kris. He was looking away as Kris stared at him, her arms crossed. It was all the confirmation Zac needed.
"I was not aware of any kiss," Zac said. His words were seething; he was no longer able to keep his cool. It was exactly what the prosecution was looking for.
"Let's talk about your mother-in-law."
"No, let's talk more about this kiss, since you seem to know more about it than I do. You--" Zac's eyes met with Mark, who was discreetly motioning for him to stop. Zac paused. "Let's talk about my mother-in-law."
"She doesn't seem to like you very much."
"She has every reason; I never let on for a minute that I liked her or how she treated her family," Zac said, finding himself still irritated.
"How did she treat her family?"
"Well, when she was around, it was quite terrible. I don't know how Ginger actually lived there, but I guess it was better than being shipped around from foster home to foster home. Ginger did have to stay in a foster home for a few months while her mother was in a hospital and her father skipped town. Lynn is biploar, so when she wasn't in the hospital, she was screaming at her family and making daily suicide threats."
"So Ginger wasn't happy?"
"Absolutely not. She started going by Ginger to sever all ties with her mother, who called her Rosemary and never anything else. Ginger wouldn't speak of her home life, and when we atually were at her house, we spent the entire time locked in her room. When I wasn't in town, she'd call me crying because of something that happened with her mother. One day, when I was in town, she called me and, after a lot of coercing on my part, finally told me that her mother hit her. That was it for me; I finally went over there and got her out of that situation."
"This was the kidnapping Mrs. Stevens was speaking of?"
"It was hardly a kidnapping. Ginger was living in a terrible situation and I got her out of it, at least for a little while," Zac answered.
"Why didn't you just call the police?"
"I'd been dating Ginger for about two months at that point and she'd called the police on her mother at least ten times already. They weren't doing anything for her," Zac said. "She just really needed to get away at that point."
"And where did you go?"
"We went back to my place in Tulsa. She stayed with me for about three weeks before she decided she should go back home. I didn't think it was a good idea, but she felt she needed to. I let her go."
"And what was her situation like when she went back home?"
"It wasn't any better, but it wasn't any worse either. I made a point to see her as often as possible so she wasn't alone in the situation."
"What exactly was this crashing Mrs. Stevens spoke of?" Zac shifted, slightly embarrassed to answer truthfully.
"Uh, when Ginger and I would, um, make love, it kind of got out of hand. It was sort of all over the place."
"What do you mean?"
"It was all over the place: in the bed, on the desk, against the door...everywhere. Her room was covered in trinkets. They were all over the shelves, the dresser, and the desk. You could barely move without knocking something over."
"So I assume you were moving quite often, then."
"...Yes. Quite often." Zac's eyes drifted over to the audience and he found his parents looking down, embarrassed. It was hard enough to speak about his sex life to a complete stranger in front of more strangers and his family, but it was taped and airing on television. At least Jenny was at home and not watching.
"So you were never abusive towards her?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"All right," the lawyer said. He looked at his watch. They decided to wrap it up until after lunch. Mark pulled Zac away as quickly as possible, knowing what would happen otherwise.
"We'll have lunch in here," Mark said, and pulled Zac into a small meeting room. "What do you want?"
"Taylor's head on a platter."
"Zac, don't say things like that. You're trying to prove you're not that kind of person." Zac sat down.
"I just can't believe this. I thought it was over, he assured me it was over. I even gave him a chance to tell me and he didn't. That bastard."
"Zac--"
"That fucking bastard."
"You know, Ginger was there too," Mark said. "I doubt she was clawing to get away from him."
"Ginger's dead! I can't be mad at someone who's dead! That's practically sacreligious," Zac pointedly said.
"Or maybe you don't want to believe your loving and caring wife was capable of such a thing. You don't want to ruin your perfect view of her," Mark told him.
"Don't psychoanalyze me, Mark!"
"Calm down, Zac. I'm not against you here, all right? I just want some lunch and to calm you down enough so when you go back on the stand you don't act like you've been acitng so far. Now what do you want?"
"I'm not hungry."
"That would be Chinese, then." Mark picked up the phone.