Chapter 10: What Justice Looks Like in the Morning
The bail hearing was denied.
Graves called Edward at ten-fifteen to tell him.
The judge had cited flight risk — Diane had been found attempting to contact Victor Hale from a restricted line, and the forged documents represented a level of premeditation that the court took seriously.
Edward thanked him and hung up.
He was standing in the hallway outside his study when Daniel passed with a pair of pruning shears, heading toward the east garden.
"She won't be released before trial," Edward said.
Daniel stopped.
"Good," he said.
Then, after a pause: "Is that the right thing to feel?"
"I think so," Edward said.
"Yes."
Daniel nodded and continued down the hall.
The trial, when it came four months later, lasted eleven days.
Victor Hale testified on the sixth day.
He sat in the witness box in a grey suit and spoke in a careful, measured voice, and every word he said was designed to minimize his own role and maximize Diane's.
The prosecutor let him speak.
Then she placed his original statement on the screen — the one he had given the night of the arrest, before he had lawyers and strategy and time to reconsider — and read sections of it aloud.
The courtroom was very quiet.
Diane sat at the defense table and did not look at Victor once.
On the ninth day, Diane took the stand herself.
She was composed.
She was articulate.
She described a woman who had been manipulated by Victor, who had been frightened, who had made terrible choices under duress.
She cried at the right moments.
She looked at the jury with the right expression.
Edward sat in the gallery and watched her.
He had watched her for three years across a dinner table.
He knew every register of her face.
He knew the difference between what she felt and what she performed.
The jury deliberated for two days.
On a Tuesday morning, they returned.
Guilty on all counts.
Attempted homicide.
Document fraud.
Conspiracy to commit fraud.
And — after the exhumation and the toxicology report that came back six weeks into the trial — a fourth charge, added late: the unlawful administration of a harmful substance, in connection with Eleanor's d*ath.
That last charge had taken the longest to build.
The toxicology report had found trace evidence of a compound that had no business being in Eleanor's system — something that, administered in small amounts over several months, would have produced exactly the symptoms she had recorded in her careful handwritten list.
When the fourth verdict was read, Edward closed his eyes.
He sat like that for a moment — just a moment — and then opened them again.
Ruth was seated beside him.
She had come to every day of the trial.
She reached over and placed her hand on his arm without speaking.
He put his hand over hers.
Diane was sentenced eight weeks later.
Twelve years on the primary charges, with the additional charge running consecutively.
Victor Hale received seven years, reduced for cooperation, with the prosecutor making clear on the record that the reduction reflected his assistance and not any finding that his culpability was lesser.
His lawyer tried to argue otherwise.
The judge declined to agree.
On the day of sentencing, as the officers moved to escort Diane from the courtroom, she turned and looked at Edward one final time.
"You should have been easier to love," she said.
"Then none of this would have been necessary."
Edward looked at her.
"You never tried to love me," he said.
"You tried to replace me."
May you like
She held his gaze for one more second.
Then the officers moved her forward, and she was gone.
