"Hey, hey, hey!" Yuna yelled, as a crowd ran to her car, all the people yelling at her and pushing and shoving. "I can’t open my door, go away!"
After wrestling a foot out the door, which the crowd nearly took off as the y kept trying to press closer, she realized what was going on—the doctor had failed to get a gag order and all these people were reporters, wanting a quote they could turn inside out and mangle as they saw fit.
"Shoo!" she yelled, keeping herself in check enough not to tell them to fuck off. Reluctantly, they backed off enough to let her get out and walk—slowly—to the courthouse.
"If I get robbed here, I’m gonna be pissed, she muttered to herself, not caring who heard it.
Once inside the courtroom, things were relatively quieter. Quieter, but not calmer. Seymour’s lawyer turned to glance at her, but turned away just as quickly, wearing expression that told Yuna she wanted he to know the trial wasn’t about her.
Dr. Paine’s stoicism was fading, but only enough to show how tired she was. She was sipping at a large Starbucks cup and there was an empty one next to her.
Seymour was amazingly calm. So much that Yuna wondered if she were in the right room at first. He sat up straight in his chair—his injured arm held in a sling and was now in a cast.
He looked so strange, so amazingly not himself that Yuna was caught staring at him for several minutes. He was wearing slacks and a dress shirt, making him look several years older. His hair had been braided in a way that made such a simple version seem extremely elegant. He looked more like some one ready for a business meeting than a court date—especially one they were so adamant about avoiding earlier.
He turned to her and it wasn’t a smile, but he gave her an expression meant to reassure her. She smiled before he turned away, but she was disturbed that he was the one who thought he should give encouragement.
She hoped Dr. Paine was as worried about his sudden change in attitude as she was—if not more.
She wished she could be there at the table with him. She was just a witness—just a character witness unless they actually wanted to know what he said to her—she couldn’t help him now. Just Donna, the lawyer, and Dr. Paine, who he refused to talk to.
"All rise," the bailiff announced too early and not soon enough.
She stood up with everyone else, nearly tripping over herself.
"Judge Yunalesca presiding."
Yuna tried to stand higher on her tiptoes, despite her three-inch heels to get a better view.
"Be seated," she heard a female voice say, and she did as everyone else did. "State vs. Seymour Guado. You are hereby charged with murder in the second degree, how do you plead?"
"My client wishes himself to plead guilty," Donna started before Seymour even opened his mouth. "However, upon request of his mental and physical physician, she would like to request a defense of insanity."
"Thank God," Yuna whispered and the man sitting next to her gave her an odd look.
"The jury shall take that into consideration," the judge said.
"Seymour shall be tried as a juvenile, but faces sentencing—pending the jury’s decision—as an adult."
"Would the prosecution present their opening statement, please?" the judge ordered.
"All I wish to say is that everyone of us present here, their friends, and their families, has at least once depended upon our late Police Chief’s decisions and planning. He brought the workforce to it’s finest most efficient and one he met his untimely end the police department has become a disgrace and filed with chaos that it should be fighting and preventing."
"Concise," the judge commented. "The defense?"
"Ones mark on a community, with their job, can be wholly different than from the mark they leave on their families. Every kind of celebrity has had every kind of scandal behind closed doors and this one is no exception. Seymour is not the only victim of our late police chief and what he meant to keep hidden. Although it is uncertain as to what truly happened, the jury cannot ignore the evidence of the abuse he suffered. It is the belief of several people here that he was not temporarily insane when he committed his crime, but is still suffering from the mental abuse he knew for most of his life."
"Prosecution calls first witness."
* * * * *
The witness list was long and thorough. Isarruu drilled each and everyone on almost every case Jyscal had personally handled, about what they heard about his son—nothing about the marriage, though no one really knew heads or tails about it when Donna brought it up. When asked about his wife most shrugged or thought she’d run off and ditched the kid with him. One officer thought Seymour was adopted.
Random civilians were called to the stand as more character witnesses.
Yuna almost fell asleep.
The trial had started early in the morning, there was one a fifteen minute break for lunch and was now being broadcast on the late evening news live.
"Prosecution calls Seymour Guado to the stand."
The courtroom went quiet save for the whir of the cameras and Dr. Paine swearing quietly.
Seymour stood up as the stenographer asked if she would try to record Dr. Paine’s mild outburst.
Yuna froze. She hadn’t thought about this. She had thought of what Donna might ask for his defense. The prosecution would rip him to shreds first. On live television.
If he felt cornered he’d attack; if he attacked, he’d lose no matter what.
If this was such hell where was her handbasket?