“And vice versa?”
“Yeah.”
“And as established in your conversation with my esteemed colleague just now, you were with him on the night of the incident in question, August 23 and the early morning of August 24?”
“Yeah, he was at my place.”
“Your parents’ house?”
“Yeah, sorry, my parents’ house.”
“And what were you doing there?”
Kevin shrugs again, his signature move. If Kevin has ever been bothered by anything in his life, he has never let anyone know it. The phrase ‘water off a duck’s back’ was invented for him. I once overheard our moms talking about how little both their sons had cried growing up, and whereas Mom had worried constantly about Ethan’s lack of lungpower, Kevin’s mom had said he didn’t seem to ever cry because he was too busy laughing. At the time, this had sounded a little creepy to me, but now watching him on the witness stand I can easily see how his good-natured languorousness could put you at ease. “We weren’t really doing anything,” he says, “we were just chilling, you know? Hanging out?”
“And was it just the two of you?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you didn’t attend Jessica Heng’s party that night at all?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, we weren’t invited.”
There’s a ripple of movement, a shifting reaction from the other side of the courtroom when he says this. Jessica Heng and her friends bristling at this mild accusation, despite the fact that Kevin doesn’t look or sound bothered by it at all. I’ve spent my life carving a space for myself at the very center of things, but Ethan’s never been bothered by any of it, and Kevin even less so. His tone is even, indifferent, and he leans back in his chair, looking more relaxed than anyone else who has taken the stand up to this point. I look over at the jury to try and gauge their reaction to Kevin, but their faces are a wash of boredom. They have already been here so long.
“Now, Mr Lawrence, as we’ve just heard from your testimony, you claim Mr Hall left your parents’ house at between two fifteen and two thirty in the morning, but in your initial statement to the police you told them Mr Hall had left your house by two a.m.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t completely sure. I said it was around two, two thirty.”
“Oh, so now you’re saying you can’t be sure?”
“I think it was just before two thirty, but I know I said it was more like two a.m. at first, so I’m just saying I can’t be one hundred percent sure.”
“If you weren’t sure then, and you aren’t sure now about what time Mr Hall left, where did the two or two thirty am time frame come from?”
“I figure he was gone by two thirty because I know I went online for a while, and when I logged off it was about three a.m.”
“And how long do you think you were online for, before you logged off?”
“It was like twenty to thirty mins max, which is why I think maybe Ethan left a little later, more like two thirty.”
“What was it exactly you were doing? Online, I mean.”
“I was just on AIM.”
“And by AIM you mean AOL instant messenger?”
“Yes.”
“So, you were messaging with someone?”
“Yeah,” Kevin says, and for the first time he looks a little unsure of himself, a little worried.
“Who was it you were messaging with?”
“Just a friend,” Kevin says, shuffling in his seat, shifting his eyes suddenly to the jury bench and back again.
“A friend? I thought you said you didn’t have many – or any – friends, apart from Mr Hall?”
“At school, yeah, but this was someone I know outside of school.”
“Is this person your boyfriend, Mr Lawrence?”
“What?”
“Is this – Caleb Donovan – who you were messaging on that night, your boyfriend?”
“No – I – I’m not … with anyone,” Kevin says, stricken, almost speechless.
“Because we have a record of those messages and not only do they indicate that you and Mr Donovan know one another intimately, but they’re also time stamped.”
“Objection!” Ethan’s lawyer finally calls, getting to his feet. “The witness’s sexuality and relationship status has nothing to do with the trial, and these messages haven’t been entered into evidence.”
“I have them right here, Your Honor,” the prosecutor continues smoothly, unruffled. He picks up a file from where it’s been waiting this whole time, and walks it over to the judge’s bench. “And they clearly show that Mr Lawrence had finished … messaging with Mr Donovan, and logged off by 2:47 in the morning, indicating that if he had been online for around thirty minutes as he claims, then Mr Hall would have left the Lawrence home before two fifteen in the morning, leaving him plenty of time to meet the victim in the woods and kill him before getting home just before three in the morning.”
Kevin starts speaking rapidly, filling up the silence that has fallen over the courtroom, “I might not have been online for as long as thirty minutes though, like I said, it might’ve only been twenty minutes, maybe even less time, I’m not sure. We’d been smoking and I might have –”
The judge holds up his hand, interrupting Kevin’s hurried speech, indicating he should stop talking. Taking the file from the prosecutor, the judge peers down at both the prosecutor and the defense attorney with bored equilibrium, while flipping the file open, paging through the thin document, before finally looking up. “Your objection is overruled, Mr Castle,” he says to Ethan’s lawyer. “While I agree that the witness’s sexuality and relationship history has little to do with the proceedings here, these records clearly show that his online interaction with this Caleb Donovan had ended by 2:47am.”
“The defense hasn’t had the opportunity to examine this evidence, Your Honor, and we demand a recess in which to do so. Why didn’t the prosecution enter this into evidence before the trial?”
“It’s only just come to light, Your Honor,” the prosecutor says.
“That’s all well and good,” Castle interjects, “but if you have the conclusion of the message stream between Mr Donovan and Mr Lawrence, surely you also have proof of when the AIM conversation started between the two of them, and we can put this all to rest.”
“The defense raises a fair point, Mr Curtis,” the judge says, “I don’t see any indication here of when this conversation started or what time it was initiated. Do you have the start the of these messages?”
“I don’t believe we do,” Curtis says, staring up at the judge.
“Well, either you enter the AOL Instant Messenger conversation in its entirety into evidence, with time stamps for both the beginning and the end of the conversation between Mr Lawrence and Mr Donovan, or you do not enter it into evidence at all,” the judge says.
I watch Curtis shuffle in front of the judge and say something to him that no one watching can here.
“In that case,” the judge says, voice ricocheting around the courtroom, “I have to ask the jury to disregard this evidence, and to ask them not take it into consideration during any future deliberations.”
I turn to the jury, trying to decipher what they make of this, but it’s impossible. Just as it will almost certainly be impossible for them to ‘disregard’ anything they hear in court throughout this trial, whether the judge asks them to or not.
12.
NOW
“That was great, Olivia,” Kat said, when the interview was over, and she’d finally turned the ‘record’ button off.
“Does that mean you’ll let me hang around for a little bit longer?” I asked, making my tone as light as possible. The interview had been draining: I hadn’t spoken about Ethan’s case, or the night of Tyler’s murder so much in such a long time, and the experience was enervating. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for several hours, but I wasn’t about to let Kat and Ray know that.
Kat gave me a small smile and glanced over at Ray. “You can hang around as long as you want, Olivia, I just think maybe you should give us a list of the people in town who won’t be so happy to see you,” she said, with an arch in her voice that let me know she was only half-joking.
“To be honest, it might be simpler and faster if I gave you a list with the people who would be happy to see me,” I shot back.
Lying over on the bed, Daniel gave a shout of laughter that made me jump. I’d practically forgotten he was there. “Typical Liv,” he said, smiling at me.
“You make enemies wherever you go, or something, Olivia?” Ray asked.
“It does sometimes feel like that, yeah,” I said. “But I can think of at least one person who might be happy to see me. Or if not happy, then at least, not outright hostile.”
“Who?” Ray asked, looking as skeptical as he sounded.
“Kevin Lawrence. He was my brother’s best friend. Still is.”
I’d been a little surprised to find Kevin still living in Twin Rivers, but there he was, languorous smile still in place as he slowly recognized me as I walked towards him in the outdoor equipment shop he was now working at. I knew he was still in contact with Ethan – that they wrote to each other, and that Kevin had visited him – but I hadn’t seen him since I left town.
“Man, this is wild,” he said as I approached him behind the counter, “I’d forgotten how similar you both look. It’s like looking at Ethan.”
“Thanks, Kevin. I always love it when people say I look like a man.”
“You know what I mean. You must get it all the time,” he said, laughing while rolling his eyes.
“Too much.”
“I’ll bet. So, how are you Olivia Hall?”
“Never better.”
He lifted one skeptical eyebrow and let out a puff of air, “Sure. Haven’t seen you back here in about nine years, but you’ve never been better. Are you here about the podcast?”
“Yeah, did Ethan tell you already?”
“Yeah, he asked if I’d get involved and I said yes. Thought the host would be getting in touch first though, not you.”
I explained that Kat and Ray were busy elsewhere, but that they’d left me to approach Kevin about consenting to an interview. Kevin nodded his head energetically, “Definitely. Anything to help Ethan out.”
“Can I ask you something?” I asked, lowering my voice and glancing around the shop as I did so. It was hardly busy, but there were a few customers in there, browsing the racks of climbing and camping gear, the rows of outdoor clothing.
“Sure.”
“Why did you stay? How did you stay? Everyone here believes my brother is guilty, how do you just live with that?”
Kevin shrugged, “It doesn’t come up as much as you probably think it does. It’s been a long time, Olivia. And this is my home. Why should I leave?”
I wasn’t sure it had been all that long, although I was willing to bet it had felt twice as long for Ethan. Being back in Twin Rivers was beginning to make time fold in on itself; all of a sudden ten years felt like nothing, felt like it could’ve been yesterday, but seeing familiar faces aged by the years made them seem even longer. “So, you’re not universally hated and vilified?” I asked.
“Not exactly, no. Going on this podcast is hardly going to help though, is it.” He didn’t phrase it as a question, as if he already knew the damage he was going to be doing to himself, and was willing to accept it.
“How have you always been so sure?” I asked, my fingers worrying at the packet of a Clif Bar that was part of a display to tempt hungry shoppers paying for their chosen purchases.
“Because I know he didn’t do it. There’s no way Ethan could kill someone. Why? Haven’t you always been sure he was innocent?”
“Well, yeah, but I shared a womb with the guy. You didn’t have to believe he was innocent. I did.”
“You might have shared a womb with him, Olivia, but I’m the one who actually knew him. He was always so surprised you believed him.”
“He was?” I asked.
“Yeah, he thought maybe it was guilt.”
“Guilt?” I said, unable to stop the stretch and strain of my voice.
“Because you were such good friends with Tyler and that crowd. I think Ethan just assumed you’d stick with them, when it came down to it.”
“Well, not when it came to murder,” I said, and Kevin raised both his eyebrows.
“I guess not. Blood really is thicker than water, huh?”
I thought suddenly of that pig’s blood on our porch, the bucket of blood thrown over the windshield of my father’s car; thick, viscous and vicious dripping to the ground in malevolent accusation. Shaking off the lightheadedness that shivered through me, I nodded at Kevin before making arrangements with him to record an interview once his shift was over that afternoon.
* * *
Extract from transcript of Season 3 Episode 1 of Shadow of a Doubt [continued]:
Kat Thomas [voiceover]: It’s not hard finding people willing to talk about Ethan Hall in Twin Rivers. What is hard is finding someone willing to talk about him, not only on the record, but in positive terms. Kevin Lawrence was, and probably still is, Ethan’s best friend. They grew up together and even now, Kevin is one of the few people who visits Ethan in prison who isn’t related to him. He was also a defense witness during the trial for Tyler’s murder, but his conflicting testimony ended up hindering, rather than helping his friend’s case.
So, have the intervening ten years changed Kevin’s mind about the case, or does he still believe the wrong person was locked up for Tyler Washington’s murder?
Kevin Lawrence: Absolutely. I absolutely believe Ethan is innocent.
KT: What is it that convinced you?
KL: I didn’t really ever need to be convinced. Anyone who knows Ethan, knows he’s incapable of killing someone. Of murder. The problem was that no one here really knew him.
KT: So, you think the police and the prosecution were able to take advantage of the fact that Ethan didn’t have many friends or allies in town?
KL: Definitely. And not just that. He was up against a town institution, you know? It wasn’t just that Tyler was this super popular guy, his mom was the mayor. She still is. Talk about power and influence.
KT: The longer we’ve spent in Twin Rivers, the more it’s become apparent just how influential his family was and is. We’ve filed request after request for the investigation files, but so far they’ve all been blocked, and I’m beginning to think that’s all coming from the mayor’s office.
KL: I wouldn’t be surprised by that at all. And that’s how it all felt at the time too, you know? There was so much pressure on the police to wrap up the murder investigation that they just pinned it on the first guy they found. I always felt like Ethan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
KT: Can we talk about that for a second, because during the trial you were brought as a witness for the defense because you could place him at your parents’ house until around 2:30am. This timing was really important because Tyler’s time of death was given as between 1:45 and 2:45am, so if he was still with you at 2:30, then he wouldn’t have been able to kill him.
KL: Yeah, that’s right.
KT: But that all fell apart when the prosecution revealed evidence that contradicted your timeline of events.
KL: Yeah.
KT: Your initial statement to the police also stated that you thought Ethan had left your house by 2am, which would have meant he didn’t have an alibi right in the middle of the time of death window.
KL: Yea-ah.
KT: So, did you lie at any point during the investigation and trial, Kevin?
KL: No. My statement to the police was actually that I thought Ethan had left between 2 and 2:30 in the morning. I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t been paying really close attention, but that’s the time I gave, and apparently they just put it down as 2am.
KT: What was it that made you change it from ‘between 2 and 2:30’ to 2:30am?
KL: Well, it wasn’t precisely 2:30am. I think it was probably a bit before that, but not much. Basically, I remembered going to bed at like, 3, but I knew that was only about a half hour after Ethan left.
KT: So, what about the record of the messages between you and Caleb Donovan the prosecution produced at the trial?
KL [sighs]: Man, all that stuff was just … you know they only had the end of the message thread?
[pause]
But they didn’t have the beginning of the message thread from that night, which if they had would have been at about 2:20am, around when Ethan left. That whole conversation on AIM lasted about ten or fifteen minutes.
KT: In court, you said you the AIM conversation lasted thirty minutes.
KL: I did? Well, maybe I’m remembering wrong, or maybe I was wrong back then. Honestly, you try remembering a conversation you had online with someone ten years ago, and see how easy it is to remember how long it lasted. Maybe at the trial I was referring to how long I’d been online, rather than how long Caleb and I had been chatting? I don’t know. I can’t remember exactly.
KT: So, you didn’t lie and change your statement about when he left your house, in order to provide him with a better alibi?
KL: No. I know that’s what people said and what a lot of people still believe, but genuinely I didn’t. People don’t understand what it’s like when you’re being questioned by police. Especially in a murder investigation when someone’s dead, and another person’s whole life hangs in the balance. Plus they brought me in for questioning a few days after Tyler was actually killed, so it was all a little bit hazy by then anyway. You’re always working with an approximation of what happened, because you’re only human, and you’re under pressure and your memory is fallible, but then the police term it as ‘evidence’ or whatever, and suddenly you may as well have carved that statement into a tablet of stone. So, then when you re-think something, or come to a realization, or just have a little more time to think about something, you’re branded at best as unreliable and at worst a liar, and suddenly your witness testimony is worthless.
* * *
“Thanks Kevin, that was great,” Kat said, removing her headphones and indicating Kevin could do the same.
“When will all this be released?” Kevin asked, and I thought I could hear a slight strain of concern in his voice. As if his conversation with Kat had finally made what he was doing sink in.
Kat exchanged a look with Ray, another of their private, impenetrable moments I couldn’t hope to decipher, and said, “We’re going to start releasing episodes from next week. We like to get as much research done as possible in the weeks leading up to recording, but then we prefer to record week by week. So the story can change and develop as we go along.”
Kevin swallowed deeply, nodding his head and his gaze flicked over to me, meeting my eyes. “And do you think you’ll use this interview in the first episode?”
“Probably, yes. We’ve already recorded a little introductory interview with Olivia today, and we’ll have one with Ethan in there too, of course.”
We were recording in Kevin’s kitchen, countertops gleaming white, the window above the sink revealing a small but well-tended yard, the walls painted a deep, rich blue. Kevin and Kat were talking still, comparing notes of visiting Ethan in prison, and I stood up suddenly, my chair almost toppling over behind me as I did so. Ray reached out a hand to stop it from falling and he gave me a quizzical look as I marched over to the sink, staring out of the pretty window as I washed my hands in bone chilling water. “You okay, Liv?” Kevin asked as I leaned down to splash my face and I made an indecipherable noise, before turning off the tap and turning around to face the others.
“Yeah, fine, just suddenly a bit hot,” I said, red warmth creeping up my neck.
Kat wasn’t paying too much attention, looking around at the kitchen instead. “This isn’t your parents’ place, is it Kevin?” she said.
“No. They still live on their farm, just outside of town.”
Kat nodded, her face scrunched in concentration, cogs whirring inside. “Could you take us to see it? And maybe walk us through the route Ethan would have taken that night?”
Kevin shrugged, his eyes meeting mine for a second before flicking back to Kat, “Sure, why not?”
Kevin’s parents’ farm backed up right to the woods that surrounded the south-eastern corner of the city. Sitting on three acres of land, the Lawrence family had apple orchards I’d spent my childhood running through. Our mothers had been friends for years, bonding over green fingers and the desire to watch things grow, and up until the age of ten or eleven, I’d spent almost as much time here as Ethan. The farmhouse was weathered now, peeling yellow paint and lopsided porch railings, when all those years ago they’d looked sunshiny and new. I hadn’t been there in almost two decades and it forced the same sense of disjointed familiarity that being back in Twin Rivers did. An almost-there, but not-quite feeling; one I didn’t want to get too comfortable with.
“So, this is it,” Kevin said, eyes squinting in the thin sunshine.
“It’s a long way from the road,” Ray pointed out.
“Yeah, the driveway’s about a quarter mile long alone.”
“So, how long would it have taken Ethan to cycle back home from here?” Kat asked.
Kevin tilted his head to the side, “Well, he didn’t take the road. He never did. See, if you cycled back through the woods using the footpaths, it cut the journey time way down. I did it everyday to school too, and Ethan – and Olivia’s – house was just on the other side of the school.”
Kat looked to me and I nodded in confirmation. “Going on the roads, it would probably take at least 40 minutes, but the woods meant it only took about 20, 25 minutes,” Kevin clarified.
“Even in bad weather?” Ray asked, “with mud or whatever?”
Kevin just shrugged, “Yeah.”
Kat turned towards Ray and said in a low voice, “It would be great if we could get hold of a bike, do the trip ourselves …”
Ray nodded thoughtfully while Kevin let out a shot of laughter, “You want a bike, we’ve got about 20. Come on,” he said, striding off towards one of the farm’s outbuildings, beckoning us with a wave to follow him.
The red doors creaked open, stiff and in need of some WD40, letting out a puff of dusty air as they did so. Inside was dimly lit by daylight creeping in at the wooden slats and through the now-open doorway, dust motes newly lit by the afternoon sun swirling in our pathway. It was a treasure trove of broken down, barely used machinery. Not just push bikes but quad bikes, about five different types of lawn mower, several tractors, and somewhere right at the back, I knew there was an ancient decommissioned fire truck. Kevin didn’t have any siblings to share this bounty with, but his dad had inherited the farm years ago, and with it this barn full of semi-useful objects.
“Take your pick,” Kevin said expansively, extending his arms out beside him to take in the entirety of the barn.
Ray let out a low whistle and Kat said, “Well, someone could be on an episode of hoarders.”
Kevin laughed, pulling one of the bikes towards him as he did so.
There wasn’t an official path leading into the woods from the Lawrence farm, but one had been formed there over the years, well-worn and walked over, tire tracks marking the way. The day darkened as soon as we were under the cover of the trees, light filtering through in patches and golden-hued columns. It took just two minutes to reach the public foot and cycle path that Ethan would have turned left on that night, and many nights before.
“He seriously rode this way at night?” Ray called a little breathlessly to Kevin who was leading the way.
