Sycamore Hill Pt. 02

Trevor swore loudly and exploded after him, his feet pounding away at a gravel walkway while he yelled for Lara to take me to the cabin. She immediately yanked on the rope around my wrists and began walking briskly up the driveway, effectively pulling me like a reluctant dog on a leash. She wasn't taking chances, sidestepping her way up the driveway with her head cranked over her shoulder so that she could watch me the whole time, the gun in her free hand pointed squarely at the center of my chest. Between the gun and the Taser and my bound wrists, overpowering Lara seemed out of the question. But at least we were alone now and I had my first, and probably only chance to chip away at her resolve and penetrate the delusional fantasy world that Danielle had constructed of lies, lust and false love.

And so, I began to talk. Slowly at first, carefully probing with ideas or comments, observing her reaction, trying to find something effective and then, more quickly and with more desperation as the time I had to turn her mind around began slipping away.

I told her that the plan would never work, that she'd end up in jail, that if she stopped now and ran she might have a chance of freedom with Danielle. I told her she wasn't thinking clearly and that she'd eventually wake up and hate herself for what she was doing, that she could never be happy in a relationship built off murder and betrayal.

By the time we'd reached the house and stood in the great room, waiting for Trevor to return with Virgil, she hadn't answered or blinked or even said anything beyond one or two word orders, acting like an emotionless automaton.

But when I began describing Danielle as a bitch of a con artist that couldn't be trusted, the icy cold façade that had become Lara's face broke and I saw a flicker of anger and doubt. She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again, retraining the pistol at my chest, her eyes narrowing, her jaw clenched.

It was the first reaction of any kind that I'd gotten, so I pressed my argument forward as quickly and loudly as I could.

"She's a user Lara. She's using you. She doesn't love you, she never has. She's turned you against me so that I could be a patsy in her scheme to..."

Abruptly and without warning Lara screamed her response, thrusting the pistol toward my chest.

"Shut up Kevin. Shut the fuck up. This is all for me and for her. She loves me more than you ever could. She loves me..."

Her voice was becoming strained with an intense shrillness that somehow gave away a sense of doubt about what she'd been saying. We began shouting over each other.

"She doesn't love you. She's fucking using you. I loved you..."

"You didn't love me. You raped me. You raped me and she is saving me from you..."

"I never raped you...you asked me...I asked you. I didn't force anything on you."

"...you fucking humiliated me...just like she said you would. And now you're trying to weasel away the truth because you're scared."

Suddenly we stopped yelling, eyeing each other, our breaths coming in deep, nervous spasms. I was frantically searching my mind for any argument that could make Lara see the truth, see that I hadn't betrayed her but that Danielle would and that she'd suffer the same fate as John Williamson and me. My mind skipped across all the possible things I could say that might possibly break through Lara's psychological barriers and let her see the light, but I could think of nothing, not my protestations of love, not the contents of my conversations with Danielle not even an appeal to common sense was going to make any impact at all. I knew that Lara would have to see for herself where, exactly, she stood with Danielle and Trevor and it occurred to me that would eventually come just moments before the end. If nothing else, I could at least make her alert to that eventuality.

I slowed my breathing and tried to lock into Lara's eyes, tried to get her full, undivided attention.

"Listen to me Lara. Listen to me. You and Danielle were setting me up as Williamson's killer, but she was also setting me up as your killer. The police aren't going to find two bodies; they're going to find three. They'll find me and Williamson all right, the husband and the lover; but they'll also find..."

"Shut up Kevin. Don't you fucking say another thing..."

"Think Lara. Think. Why do you have to be in the room at all but not Danielle? Don't you think Trevor could handle this on his own? If Danielle really cared about your safety wouldn't she keep you out of the way? There's really only one good reason that you had to be there and it wasn't to help Trevor."

Lara was shaking her head angrily, but I could see an element of anxiety appear in her face, I could see the doubt grow.

"They were going to find you on the bed with your lover and me at the foot and we'd all be dead. All the witnesses dead..."

Suddenly Lara screamed and fired the gun into the ceiling, stopping my diatribe short as my mouth turned to cotton and my heart rolled over in my chest.

"If you fucking say another word...one more fucking word...I swear to God I'll shoot you right here and now."

As she re-aimed the gun to my chest, I raised my shaking hands in a gesture of uneasy truce, slowly nodding my head in agreement, hoping that she would calm down and maybe think about what I'd said.

We stood there for a lifetime—or for a few minutes if you believed the clock on the wall -like two angry statues facing each other in a confrontation empty of sound except for our ragged breathing and the blood rushing through my ears.

The silent standoff came to an abrupt end when the front door banged open and Trevor pounded into the room swearing fluently about the problems that Virgil's presence had caused. He stopped in the great room; legs spread slightly, his gun in his right hand, his hand rubbing his bald scalp, taking in the scene for a moment before looking pointedly at Lara.

"Did I hear a gunshot?"

Lara took in a breath and answered in a reluctant stammer. "I...I had to fire a...a warning shot into the ceiling."

"Well...shit." Trevor stated flatly, looking up at the ceiling 30 feet above his head. "It doesn't look like it did any damage so I doubt anyone is going to notice."

He jerked his head toward the upstairs bedroom. "Take him up to the bedroom, I'll meet you there in a second."

Lara nodded obediently and gave a savage tug to the rope before starting toward the stairs. The march toward the bedroom brought us close together and I, one last time, attempted to foster some doubt in Lara, whispering hoarsely as we climbed the treads.

"Lara...listen to me. When he gets into the bedroom he's position you in some way to set up the crime scene, maybe get you on the bed somehow so he can shoot you next to Williamson. But first, he's going to tell you to get rid of your gun. Whatever you do, don't put your gun down. Just don't put it down..."

She turned and looked at me, her face a contorted mask of hate and disdain, briefly waving the gun in front of my face as a warning gesture. She didn't say anything, her expression was sufficient and I stopped talking.

I felt a sickening sense of déjà vu as I entered the bedroom again. John Williamson's body was still there, perhaps a little grayer than it had been a few hours before, but otherwise unchanged, semi-recumbent against the pillows set against the headboard. The broken window to the right of the bed hadn't been altered either, but the speakers that had played the sounds of my wife's fictitious tryst had been removed.

Lara motioned toward a chair at the side of the bed barked out an order for me to sit as she looped her end of the restraining rope around one of the bedposts. And, again, we waited, the tension building up in me so tight that I thought either my head or my chest would explode at any time, the feeling worsening considerably when I heard Trevor's footsteps coming up the stairway.

Just as he had a few hours before, Trevor the Shave-head, burst into the bedroom and took a quick inventory, checking the bed and my position for a moment.

But while Trevor checked out me, I also checked out him out and could see by the way he was assessing the room as well as the people, dead and living, that he was, indeed, trying to sort out how he was going to choreograph the upcoming assassinations. Keeping my teeth locked shut I let out a hoarse whisper, just loud enough for Lara to hear.

"Remember what I told you Lara. Don't put down your gun..."

Lara was watching Trevor closely now, her expression having changed from angry defiance to anxious concern.

After a minute, Trevor rubbed his head again and motioned to Lara with the gun in his hand.

"OK, I think we should do it this way. You get on the bed next to John. We'll arrange it so I'll hold the gun to his head and when I plug him some of the blood will get on you. It will seem more realistic that way."

Lara suddenly took in a sharp breath but otherwise didn't respond, standing motionless, staring at Trevor, her brow wrinkling, biting her lip, thinking. Trevor looked back at her and brusquely reiterated his orders.

"Come on Lara, get moving. And put the damn gun down first."

But Lara just stood there, her whole body wavering slightly like a tree in as strong breeze, seemingly unable to move her feet at all, a little tremor beginning around her lips and chin. Trevor barked his demands one more time but when she still didn't move, he looked at her more closely, took in her doubtful expression, the slow disbelieving shake of her head, the utter and sudden lack of cooperation and his attitude changed, a hint of panic and fear now clouding his face. Without warning he raised the gun in his right hand and fired at Lara.

It was in that moment that I came to realize two important things.

The first was that it wasn't some feat of athleticism or just plain crazy luck that allowed me to escape the tendrils of the stun gun that Trevor had fired at me the night before, because, despite Lara standing still not more than 15 feet from him, the bullet sailed just over her right shoulder and struck the wall behind her.

The truth was that Trevor was just a bad shot.

The second realization was that Lara was not.

She quickly raised her gun and fired twice, striking the Shave-head dead center in the chest and knocking him off his feet, sending him to the floor with a loud thud.

She stared at him for a moment, her head still shaking in disbelief, her mouth opening and closing, silently forming words with no meaning and then she dropped the gun to the floor and followed it herself, collapsing into a heap.

"Oh God." She cried simply. "Oh God."

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My memories of the rest of that day are compressed together so that it feels like it all occurred at the same time, like kaleidoscopically juxtaposed scenes in a waking nightmare.

At some point Virgil appeared at the door, hands still bound, the restraining rope dragging some sort of a bracket that he'd been tied to that he had evidently been able to detach. He entered the room cautiously with a look of fear that melted into relief when he saw who was dead and who was alive, sat down on the floor and gave me a look that said 'you've really gotten us into some crazy shit'.

At some point before the police arrived, Virgil and I had managed to completely free ourselves from the ropes and zip ties and were seated quietly in the great room downstairs. One officer stayed with us and took our statements while half a dozen others went upstairs to the murder room, to investigate and question Lara. I was later told that when they arrived in the room, she still hadn't moved, lying in a heap on the floor, crying and muttering softly to herself.

I remember being loaded into a police cruiser, taken to a hospital where Virgil and I were checked out then released. I have a vague recollection of taking a taxi return home followed by an utterly sleepless night in what had been my marital bed.

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The trial was, of course, was a headline grabbing circus of sensationalistic half-truths and indecent conjecture. The combination of murder, money and sex was far too much for the press to leave alone and so virtually everyone who was even remotely associated with the story was the target of interviews and speculation. Initially cast as a cold, semi-abusive husband, the press eventually changed their tune when some of the facts started leaking out and simply portrayed me as a feckless man who didn't have a clue about his half-crazy wife. It was a characterization that I couldn't really disagree with.

The court elected to try the women separately when it became clear that Lara's defense would be to paint Danielle as the mastermind, essentially portraying Lara as an enthralled, mentally compromised pawn that had lost the capacity to refuse her lover's demands. I had my doubts about the veracity of this defense because that's not the way I'd really seen Lara during our marriage , but as the trial wore on, I became aware of just how little I knew or understood about my wife and eventually realized that at least some of what her lawyers were selling was rooted in the truth.

Nothing in the case the prosecution built was a surprise to me. They presented facts and witness showing that Danielle, Lara and Trevor had conspired to murder John Williamson and frame me—a dead me—for the crime. Even most of the defense witnesses told the same story, although most of them, me included, testified that Danielle was the driving force and her scheme not only planned for the death of Williamson, but for Lara also, that Trevor had likely pulled the trigger on Williamson and that Lara shot him in self-defense.

But the testimony of the last three defense witnesses took me by surprise.

The first was Lara's mom. She was always a frail looking woman, but at the trial she looked worse than I'd ever seen her, taking the stand nervously, somewhat reluctantly, almost as if the very act of testifying was physically painful. She was so emotional that it was difficult to follow her testimony, stuttering out answers in a voice so quiet and tremulous that the defense frequently had to ask her to repeat herself.

Now, I'd assumed she'd been called as a character witness of sorts, to give testimony about how Lara was essentially a good person that had gotten caught up in a bad situation. But it turned out that her testimony was the first real key in portraying Lara as an emotionally unstable victim rather than a coconspirator. She answered questions at length about Lara's childhood; alluding to some things I had a vague knowledge about, including some early issues with depression, cutting and struggles with authority.

But, then she described an incident that stunned me, an episode in Lara's life that I'd never heard about, something that any husband ought to have known. She explained that when Lara was in high school, she'd had an affair, or rather, had been the victim of sexually exploitive behavior by a powerful adult figure. The predator was her English teacher, a 35 year old woman that Lara worshipped and fell deeply in love with. The affair had gone on for at least a year and Lara had essentially become the woman's puppet, living life completely under her direction. But the evidence for the sexual involvement wasn't rock solid and Lara refused to testify against her lover, who ended up losing her job but doing no jail time.

Lara didn't fare so well and plunged into a deep depression, making an attempt on her life with an overdose. She was hospitalized and then went on for several years of therapy, but she stabilized in college and got even better after she met me, after which she stopped seeing counselors. At the end of her testimony, Lara's mom tearfully related how she had hoped that the episode had been buried solidly in the past once she got engaged, and admitted that she and Lara had gone to great pains to keep me relatively uniformed about her previous issues.

The next witness was the defense's psychiatrist, a prim and proper woman that looked like a librarian, complete with horned rim glasses and hair in a tight bun. She gave her testimony sitting bolt upright, hands folded in her lap, answering even the most salacious questions with a business like, monotonal voice that made her sound somewhat disinterested in the trial as a whole.

She detailed Lara's involvement with Danielle, describing how they'd met on the job and that Danielle, a woman who was a master manipulator, immediately recognized Lara as someone she could dominate. She described how they became friends at first and how Danielle created a need in Lara to please her, first with the quality of her work, then with her company and finally with sexual favors. She began to eat what Danielle suggested, dress the way she wanted and act the way she insisted. It wasn't long before Lara would do very nearly anything that Danielle requested. In essence, according to the psychologist, Lara was recapitulating the experience she had with her high school teacher, only with a much stronger, more dominant woman.

The psychiatrist went on to explain that the one thing Lara resisted was playing a part in the ultimate betrayal by participating in her scheme to have me killed and framed. But by manipulating Lara into accepting that the St. Patrick's fuck was actually rape she was able convince her that I wasn't worth protecting and she finally fell in line. Finally, she gave her professional opinion that Lara was laboring under a delusion that made it impossible to challenge Danielle's declaration of right and wrong, let alone tell her no.

The final witness was Lara herself, looking wan, exhausted, and maybe somewhat sleepless. Like her mother, she could barely hold it together on the stand, often pausing to compose herself for several minutes at a time. She reiterated the same story and line of thinking that her mother and her psychiatrist had offered and generally cut a sympathetic figure when questioned by the defense.

But the main prosecuting attorney, a grim faced man with a sharp, piercing voice, wasn't letting her off the hook, and hammered her when she tried to play the abused wife, especially when she alluded to her conviction that she'd been raped.

"Ms. Foster, are you telling me that the encounter you had with your husband on the night of St. Patrick's day was a traumatically unwelcome sexual advance that made you afraid of him?"

Lara looked down and in a near whisper answered. "I...I...yes. Yes it was unwelcome and it..."

The prosecutor interrupted as she hesitated. "You know Ms. Foster, we've submitted the transcript of that encounter, which you had recorded, as evidence and we'd be happy to play it for the jury to challenge your testimony here. Now, let me ask you again a little more bluntly and with the reminder that we can play the recording. Did your husband assault you?"

Lara looked up, tears starting to form in her eyes, shaking her head. "No."

"Did he emotionally abuse you?"

"No."

"Did he, in fact, do anything at all to deserve to be injured by you or your accomplice, let alone be essentially executed?"

Lara was openly crying now, shaking her head violently, as if to protect herself from the accusing words that the prosecutor was hurling at her. But he wouldn't let up, redoubling his verbal assault.

"And yet, Ms. Foster, you would have us believe that at the time you were willing to participate in a scheme to have your husband murdered because—in your mind—he somehow deserved it? That he had it coming? In light of the evidence, the transcript and the video recording and the witnesses who have all testified that your husband was nothing other than a loving, dutiful spouse, tell us please, Ms. Foster, why on earth should we believe for a second that you are anything other than a cold blooded killer? Why should we believe that your state of mind was such that you honestly thought it was ok to have your husband killed?"