half of his adult life in prison and much of the rest of it on parole."
Moore shook his head and continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Jimmy Easton was arrested yet again while fleeing from the burglary of a house in this county. Once again he had invaded the sanctity of a family's home and ransacked it. Fortunately the si-lent alarm alerted the police and he was captured. But all was not lost for Jimmy Easton. His ticket out of a lengthy habitual-offender prison term was Gregg Aldrich. You will hear how this pathological liar, this sociopath, transformed a casual chance encounter in a bar with Gregg Aldrich, where the brief conversation was about baseball, into a sinister plot to murder the woman Gregg loved. You will hear how Gregg supposedly offered this total stranger twentyfive thousand dollars to commit this crime. You will hear how Easton accepted this proposal, then you will hear how Easton was shortly thereafter stricken with a guilty conscience, apparently for the first time in his useless life, and then backed out of the deal.
"This is the garbage the state is asking you to swallow. This is the evidence on which they ask you to destroy Gregg Aldrich's life. Ladies and gentlemen, I represent to you that Gregg Aldrich will testify and he will explain to you, and to your satisfaction, how Easton could describe his living room and why there was a phone call to him."
Turning and pointing his finger at Emily, Moore thundered, "For the first time in over twenty encounters with the criminal justice system, Easton is testifying for the state instead of being prosecuted by them."
As Moore strode back to his chair, the judge addressed Emily. "Prosecutor, call your first witness."
14
From the moment she found Natalie, Suzie Walsh had been a celebrity among her friends. She had told and retold the story of how she'd been sure something was wrong when she had seen both Natalie's car door and garage door still open after she left work, exactly as they had been five hours earlier.
"Something made me investigate, even though I was worried that I could be arrested for trespassing," she would relate breathlessly, "and then when I went in and saw that beautiful woman, crumpled on the floor, blood all over her white sweater, and moaning, I tell you, I almost died myself. My fingers were trembling so much that when I dialed 911, I didn't think the call would go through. And then . . ."
Knowing that the police called Natalie's husband, Gregg Aldrich, a "person of interest" in the homicide and that someday he might be indicted, Suzie had gone a half dozen times to the Bergen County Courthouse when a criminal trial was in session, just to familiarize herself with what it would be like if she was ever called as a witness. She found the proceedings exciting and took note of the fact that some witnesses talked too much and were directed by the judge to answer the questions without giving their opinions. Suzie knew that would be hard for her to do.
When after two years, Gregg Aldrich was formally accused of Natalie's murder and Suzie knew she would definitely be a witness at the trial, she and her friends had a long discussion about what she should wear to court. "You may be on the front page of the newspapers," one of them cautioned. "If I were you I'd get a nice, new black or brown pants suit. I know you love red, but red seems too cheerful for someone describing what you saw that day."
Suzie had found exactly what she was looking for on sale in her favorite outlet. It was a brown tweed pants suit with a thread of dark red running through it. Red was not only her favorite color but it al-ways brought her luck. Just having a little of it in the pattern, and the fact that the lines of the suit also made her size fourteen body look slimmer, gave her confidence.
Even so, and even though she'd had her hair colored and blown dry the day before, Suzie felt a flutter in her stomach when she was summoned to the witness stand. She
Moore shook his head and continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Jimmy Easton was arrested yet again while fleeing from the burglary of a house in this county. Once again he had invaded the sanctity of a family's home and ransacked it. Fortunately the si-lent alarm alerted the police and he was captured. But all was not lost for Jimmy Easton. His ticket out of a lengthy habitual-offender prison term was Gregg Aldrich. You will hear how this pathological liar, this sociopath, transformed a casual chance encounter in a bar with Gregg Aldrich, where the brief conversation was about baseball, into a sinister plot to murder the woman Gregg loved. You will hear how Gregg supposedly offered this total stranger twentyfive thousand dollars to commit this crime. You will hear how Easton accepted this proposal, then you will hear how Easton was shortly thereafter stricken with a guilty conscience, apparently for the first time in his useless life, and then backed out of the deal.
"This is the garbage the state is asking you to swallow. This is the evidence on which they ask you to destroy Gregg Aldrich's life. Ladies and gentlemen, I represent to you that Gregg Aldrich will testify and he will explain to you, and to your satisfaction, how Easton could describe his living room and why there was a phone call to him."
Turning and pointing his finger at Emily, Moore thundered, "For the first time in over twenty encounters with the criminal justice system, Easton is testifying for the state instead of being prosecuted by them."
As Moore strode back to his chair, the judge addressed Emily. "Prosecutor, call your first witness."
14
From the moment she found Natalie, Suzie Walsh had been a celebrity among her friends. She had told and retold the story of how she'd been sure something was wrong when she had seen both Natalie's car door and garage door still open after she left work, exactly as they had been five hours earlier.
"Something made me investigate, even though I was worried that I could be arrested for trespassing," she would relate breathlessly, "and then when I went in and saw that beautiful woman, crumpled on the floor, blood all over her white sweater, and moaning, I tell you, I almost died myself. My fingers were trembling so much that when I dialed 911, I didn't think the call would go through. And then . . ."
Knowing that the police called Natalie's husband, Gregg Aldrich, a "person of interest" in the homicide and that someday he might be indicted, Suzie had gone a half dozen times to the Bergen County Courthouse when a criminal trial was in session, just to familiarize herself with what it would be like if she was ever called as a witness. She found the proceedings exciting and took note of the fact that some witnesses talked too much and were directed by the judge to answer the questions without giving their opinions. Suzie knew that would be hard for her to do.
When after two years, Gregg Aldrich was formally accused of Natalie's murder and Suzie knew she would definitely be a witness at the trial, she and her friends had a long discussion about what she should wear to court. "You may be on the front page of the newspapers," one of them cautioned. "If I were you I'd get a nice, new black or brown pants suit. I know you love red, but red seems too cheerful for someone describing what you saw that day."
Suzie had found exactly what she was looking for on sale in her favorite outlet. It was a brown tweed pants suit with a thread of dark red running through it. Red was not only her favorite color but it al-ways brought her luck. Just having a little of it in the pattern, and the fact that the lines of the suit also made her size fourteen body look slimmer, gave her confidence.
Even so, and even though she'd had her hair colored and blown dry the day before, Suzie felt a flutter in her stomach when she was summoned to the witness stand. She
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