The Same Hand

She had been beautiful: long chestnut hair cascading over her shoulders, a gorgeous set of eyes; one with green flecks and the other a piercing blue. She was smiling at the camera, as she should, having just graduated from college. She stood with three other girls, two with blonde hair and one with red, but all equally beaming in their black gowns and caps. When the image had been displayed on the monitor, there had been a sudden intake of breath, followed by sniffles and sobs. The remaining girls of the picture were huddled together on the court bench, sat behind the red-eyed parents of the beautiful girl who now lay in some cold metal basement with a tag on her foot. The man accused sat on the opposite side, eyes bleary but detached. He barely looked at the picture, instead staring down at his hands, red from repeated wringing.

It was a bloody case. Through the prosecutor’s eyes, it painted a perfect picture: 23-year old Ava Hughes was walking home from a night out with friends. She had made it halfway when ex-boyfriend Nathan King confronted her and, in a flurry of rage, stabbed her seven times. Once to her neck, twice to her ribs, once to her abdomen, once to her heart, and twice to her face. She had bled out in seconds, likely after the first wound, which had severed the carotid artery. The motive? The breakup between Ava and Nathan had been only a week earlier, after numerous suggestive texts and exposing pictures had been uncovered between Nathan and several anonymous women. She had moved on quickly, already spending nights in the clubs with her friends, the same three from the picture, though most recently a distraught brunette. She had blinked hard at the image, quickly bringing a tissue up to rub her eye before shooting a half-bloodshot glare in the direction of the defendant.

The poor girl had been with her college friend only moments before the monstrosity had occurred, having walked together from the club to her house before saying goodnight.

According to the prosecutor, this is when Nathan, likely having just come from a drunken visit to her home but finding it empty, intercepted Ava on the dim-lit street just one block from her home. He was angry perhaps at the breakup, at his exposure, at the loss of his possession? Who knew the particular accelerant among the pool of gas, but the match was lit nonetheless. He lashed out, a blade, likely a pocket-knife, was plunged into her neck, severing the left carotid. Ava had had no time to defend herself, not even a scratch of defensive wounds on the body, but there was blood pooled in her left hand, likely from trying to stop the flow of life that was blanketing her body. While her arm was raised, Nathan had landed three more jabs to her body, clustered below the initial wound. At this point, Ava had lost consciousness and her legs had given out, driving her body to the pavement before her. She was likely already dead, yet her body had been turned onto her back and she was stabbed in the heart. Ava had to be dead, yet Nathan stabbed her twice more directly to the face, “marring the beauty in her blue eyes and rosy cheeks that he could no longer have.” The prosecutor finished strong, directing his last statement to the other jurors and I as the picture from before lit up the monitor.

I swept the room after closing arguments, the defense having had little of significance to say throughout the trial except that DNA samples were not matched to the defendant. To be fair, the results had been inconclusive, neither helping nor hurting his case. I watched Nathan carefully, his body unresponsive, his eyes in acceptance as he jotted something on a paper his lawyer had handed him. Ava’s parents were hugging and whispering, probably praying. Of the three friends, one leaned back with closed eyes, another rested a hand on the mother’s shoulder, and the other glanced around the courtroom. All at once, we were dismissed from the courtroom and I shot one last look over my shoulder into the rapidly dispersing crowd, spotting the brunette reaching out to catch the closing door.

“Well I think we can all agree he’s guilty?” an older woman beside me announced the moment we had all taken our seats in a separate, windowless room. There was a murmur of agreement and general comments on how the prosecutor had gotten an open-shut case ; it would be a record for fastest deliberation. I mean, the jealous ex-boyfriend? Definition of textbook, albeit the murder weapon was never found and there was no DNA traced back to him. Nathan had pleaded not guilty yet did not speak a word in his own defense. “So let’s go around the room.” There were twelve of us total, eleven before me. Their momentum spread quickly and I realized my knee was bouncing as the eleventh “guilty” was declared. All eyes on me. “Well?” a sharp tone halted my knee and I met the eyes of those around me. “Innocent.” A chorus of complaints and I briefly contemplated retracting it--briefly. “Hear me out,” I finally said, ironing out the thoughts in my head. “You’re a young woman walking down the street, by yourself, at night, on a fairly dim-lit street. From up ahead, you see a man walking, no, stumbling towards you. Maybe you recognize him right away, maybe it’s not until he gets closer, but he’s your boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, ended on bad terms. He confronts you. He is standing right in front of you, probably yelling. Wait, no he can’t have been yelling because the neighbors didn’t hear anything. Which means you also didn’t yell for help. But he takes a knife out, can’t have waved it around without making you shout so he just goes straight for your throat. But, again, you’re a woman in the middle of the night; you’re watchful. You aren’t going to see your drunk, angry ex-boyfriend coming towards you and lower your guard. So any sudden movements, any wrong moves and you would have shouted or raised your arm up in defense, but you didn’t, why?” I paused, catching my breath and watching their brows furrow. “You didn’t see him coming?” a woman quietly suggested. “Exactly!”

The older woman threw her hands up in exasperation, “so, what, he came up behind her and then stabbed her? Hardly makes a difference.” A few nods. “With just that, no. Not significant at all. But he’s drunk, would have been stumbling and making a lot of noise. He couldn’t have snuck up on her. Plus, the wounds: here, stand up.” I beckoned to her excitedly as my own thoughts were racing, grabbing a pencil off the table. Reluctantly, she stood. I gave her the pencil and positioned myself in front of her, “You’re right-handed, correct?”

“Well, yes, how’d you know?”

“Probability, doesn’t matter. Stab me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Pretend to stab me in the neck or the ribs, just like Ava.” I waited before I felt the brush of the pencil on the right side of my neck. “Exactly!”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Ava was stabbed in the left carotid, the left side of her ribs. You, naturally, went for my right.”

“So, Mr. King is a leftie?” piped up one of the others.

“I don’t think he is. He signed a document today with his right hand, and the prosecutor did think he was a rightie, had he been right about the direction they came from.”

“Ambidextrous.” another stated.

“Possibly, but unlikely. Here, Ma’am be my killer again, this time left-handed.” I directed her hand to my neck and ribs before lowering myself to the floor, facedown. “Now what did the killer do?”

“He--he turned you over. Went for your heart.”

I nodded and turned myself over, seeing the woman had already readjusted her grip on the “knife.” I waited for the tip to touch my chest before, “If he was ambidextrous, he would have switched hands just like you did, without even realizing it.” She looked down at the pencil, now in her right hand.

“How do we know he didn’t?”

“The wounds to her face; they were on her right side which means left-handed strike.”

“The prosecutor didn’t say that”

“But he did. He said that her blue eyes and rosy cheeks had been stabbed. Only one eye was stabbed or else there would have been three wounds, and only Ava’s right eye was blue, the other was green. You could see it in the graduation photo.” There was a long pause and I watched the gears turn in each of my peers’ eyes. Finally, “So, an innocent verdict?” a young man asked. I shrugged my shoulders, “We each have to determine that ourselves first but… yes, I believe he is innocent.”

It was a while later, after we had all stewed in silent, reflective thought, that we recast our votes. The quiet woman next to me muttered something, when she saw I had noticed she cleared her throat. “I was just thinking of her family. Everyone out there. They all expect a guilty verdict. They all expect to put Ava’s memory to rest, to get some peace, but we can’t even give them that.”

I nodded my head slowly, “maybe we can.” I stood up suddenly, startling the quiet room and confusing the woman beside me. “Could I just have a few of you join me? Just to test a theory. It will be quick; I promise.” Slowly, three rose from there chairs and lined up next to the double doors I stood by. I opened both and held them. “When I let go, keep the door on the right from closing, as if you were going to walk through it.” I directed the first in line. I let go and he reached out with his right. I nodded in approval and turned to the second. Same reaction. I repeated with the third person, the quiet woman, and this time she reached out with her left. I breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re left-handed?” I asked. “Y-yes.” She replied, still holding the door. “I think we may give them peace after all.”

#theholdout #randomhouse #theprose