PRESENT TENSE
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Friday, June 28, 2003
San Diego, California
Rose continued to observe Cal’s trial, making
sure that she stayed far away from him. She sat in the back corner of the room,
out of his view. On the rare occasions when he did catch sight of her, she
cringed at the look in his eyes. He was still furious.
On Friday, June twenty-eighth, the last of
the witnesses had been called, and at around ten o’clock, the jurors
disappeared into another room to debate whether to convict him or not.
Rose was on pins and needles all day. She
tried to read her magazine, but couldn’t maintain her interest in it, so she paced
back and forth in the hall, waiting for the verdict.
Finally, at 4:30, the jury returned with a
verdict. One juror read the verdict while everyone in the courtroom waited
tensely.
"On the charge of embezzlement, the jury
finds Caledon Hockley not guilty."
Whispers broke out around the room. Cal
looked smug. The judge finally succeeded in calming the observers, and the
juror continued.
"On the charges of attempted murder, the
jury finds him guilty of both charges."
Pandemonium broke out in the courtroom, with
people talking loudly and milling around. Cal’s smug look changed to one of
shock, and then fury. The judge shouted above the uproar.
"Order! Order!"
People finally calmed down. The judge looked
at Cal. "Mr. Hockley, you are hereby sentenced to fifteen years in state
prison, with possibility of parole after eight years."
As Cal was handcuffed and escorted out of the
room, his eyes locked with Rose’s. She felt the force of his look like a
physical blow. If he had been angry before, it was nothing compared to the way
he looked at her now. Whatever feelings of love and affection he might have had
for her before had vanished, replaced by a virulent hatred. Cal blamed her
entirely for his position.
After a few moments, Rose picked up her purse
and headed downstairs, trying to avoid the reporters who were eager to hear her
response to the verdict.
She wasn’t quite successful. A reporter for
the L.A. Times caught up to her as she tried to sneak outside, and soon several
others surrounded her.
“Rose!”
“Rose!”
“Miss DeWitt-Bukater!”
Rose backed against a wall, then
straightened, determined not to let them intimidate her. They meant her no
harm; all they wanted was her statement—and her picture, she realized, as
several cameras clicked.
A reporter from Channel 7 stuck a microphone
in her face. “How do you feel about the verdict?”
“I…” She stopped, looking at the other
reporters and photographers surrounding her. “This statement is for everyone.”
Several more microphones were stuck in her face, and the print reporters
crowded closer. Rose took a deep breath. “I’m pleased with the verdict,” she
told them. “Being shot at was one of the most frightening experiences of my
life, one that I hope is never repeated. I’m glad that Cal Hockley will be in
prison for a few years—and Jack and I will be safe.”
“How does he feel about the verdict?”
“I assume he’ll be happy when he hears about
it—if he hasn’t heard already.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at work.”
“How can we contact him?”
“I’ll tell him you want his statement, and he’ll
contact you if he so chooses.”
“Can’t you—“
Rose interrupted the reporter, putting up a
hand. “Please. I’ve given you my statement, and I have nothing else to say. I
really need to be getting home—“
“Miss DeWitt-Bukater—“
“Rose—“
“That’s enough!” One of the security guards
for the courthouse pushed through the crowd of reporters, taking Rose’s arm. “She’s
given you her statement. Now, you need to leave her alone.”
There were a few more shouted questions, but
the security guard shouted the reporters down. Still holding onto Rose’s arm,
he escorted her through the crowd of reporters, waving his nightstick
threateningly when some of them tried to follow.
“I get so damned sick of them,” he commented
as he escorted her to her car. “Every time there’s a high profile case, they
hang around harassing people.”
“They’re just doing their job,” Rose defended
them, though she was glad to be away from the reporters and hoped they wouldn’t
follow her home or bother Jack at work. “They have to get the story and let
people know what’s going on.”
“Damned vultures…” the security guard
muttered. “If they try to follow you…”
“If they try to follow me, they’ll find that
I buy my groceries at a ninety-nine cent store in Southland. Utterly
scandalous.” Rose pulled the keys from her purse and opened the car door. “Thanks,
by the way. If I’d been with those reporters much longer, I might have decided
to tell them some unpleasant things that would really piss Cal off and make him
want to come after me when he gets out of prison.” Even with keeping her mouth
shut about the morning in April, there were still plenty of inflammatory things
she could have said—about the way he hit her and tried to control her, about
the way he treated his staff, about a conversation she had overheard between
him and a stockbroker, encouraging the broker to use some inside information about
a company in trouble for Cal’s profit—plenty of things.
Rose kept an eye out for anyone following her
as she drove away from San Diego, but didn’t see anyone. San Diego’s rush hour
traffic was enough to stymie all but the most determined stalkers, and while
she was of interest, she wasn’t a celebrity.
After stopping at the store, Rose called home
on her cell phone, wanting to talk to Jack about the verdict. She could wait
until she got home, but she had already waited two hours and wanted to hear what
Jack thought.
He answered after a moment.
"Hello?"
"Jack? It’s Rose."
"Rose, what’s going on? Where are you?"
"I’m on my way home—I needed to stop for
groceries, and the traffic was terrible this afternoon, plus I got stopped by a
bunch of reporters as I was trying to leave the courthouse. The jury came back
with a verdict. We won."
"I know…we heard about it on the news.
We also saw you on TV."
“How did I look?”
“Like you were being marched to your
execution.”
Rose winced. “I tried not to let them
intimidate me, but after all that’s happened…I guess being pursued by reporters
was the last straw.”
“You did okay, though. Thanks for not telling
them how to contact me.”
“Has anyone found our home phone number and
called?”
“No…it probably helps that the number is listed
under Tommy’s name. Your mother called, though. She wasn’t happy about the
verdict or your statement.”
Rose sighed. “She always did like Cal more
than I did. I talked to her when I was moving out, but I guess what I told her
about Cal and how he treated me didn’t sink in.”
“She said you should be grateful for all he
did for you, and that she thought he had been wrongly convicted.”
“Wrongly convicted! He tried to kill her only
child!” Rose clenched the phone, trying to calm herself. It wasn’t good to get
upset while driving.
“She said that she was sure he was only
trying to kill me, not you, and that he only did it because he was jealous.”
“I bet her words were slurred when she said
it.”
“Very slurred, and she started yelling so
loud that I held the phone away from my ear. Tommy was listening to my end of
the conversation, so he took the phone away, told her not to call back, and
hung up. She tried to call back after that, but we checked the caller ID before
answering.”
“And if any of us runs into her later and
asks her about it, she won’t remember half of it—or at least she’ll claim she
doesn’t. She’s been this way since Dad died—she’ll get upset about something,
drink too much, and then not remember it the next day. She used to sit and
harangue me about things when I lived at home, and she called me at the dorm sometimes
after I went to college.” She was silent for a moment, negotiating a five-way
stop. When she spoke again, she asked, “What do you think of the verdict?”
Jack was silent for a moment. Finally, he said,
“It’s good, I guess. You’ll be safe from him for a while.” He sounded less than
enthused.
"Don’t sound so excited. I wouldn’t want
you to tax yourself."
He sighed. "Sorry. I’m just tired. It’s
been a long day." He paused. "Rose, I’m glad he’s been convicted,
though I wish he’d gotten more time in prison. I’m afraid he’ll hurt you when
he gets out."
"That’s a long time from now…I may be
far away by then. You might be, too. Remember, you were the one who actually
got shot."
"I know. I’ve still got the scars. How
did he react?"
"He looked smug when it was announced
that he had been found not guilty of embezzlement, but when he heard the
verdict on his murder attempts, he looked absolutely shocked—and furious. I’m
glad he’s going to be locked up, because I think he hates me. The look on his
face..."
"Maybe he’ll learn something from the
experience.” Jack didn’t sound too hopeful. “Maybe he’ll forgive you by the
time he gets out."
"I hope so." The phone beeped,
indicating that the battery was low. "I’ve got to get going. The phone’s
about to die. I’ll see you when I get home, okay?"
"Okay. See you, Rose."
"Bye."