Try as I might to remain resolute, it was impossible to ignore the spectacle; it was like trying to meditate in the midst of a tornado. One man got to his feet and charged toward us, not getting very far before being subdued by the gendarmerie. An object—a shoe—slammed against the glass cage only a few feet from where I was sitting, having been thrown from the balcony.
I was seated at the end of the cage farthest from the spectators, and from this vantage point I could see the expressions of each of my friends. Bryah shrunk back, looking positively terrified. Serena watched with horror, tears falling down her cheeks. Winnie kept her head down and her eyes squeezed shut.
I bit my lip and recalled the stern warnings of my lawyer: don’t show emotion. Don’t get mad. French judges don’t like outbursts from the defendants. It took all my will not to react as I watched the crowd rise up against us.
I’m innocent! I wanted to scream. How could you possibly think we’re killers?
Surely something would happen, I told myself throughout the investigation. Surely some piece of evidence would appear, some lead would crystallize—surely they’d realize they have the wrong people!
More gendarmes entered the courtroom. Several surrounded our glass cage and soon there was at least one gendarme standing at each row of spectators. Their batons were drawn but their firearms remained holstered.
It became a mob mentality, a feeding frenzy, all decorum discarded as the gendarmes called out for silence and people shouted their opinions and gestured in our direction. Some were supportive, including a couple who looked like American students, shouting something about saving France’s ass during World War II. People were yelling at us and at each other, the small minority who supported our cause trying to shout over the majority without success. The reporters filling most of the front two rows and seated in the folding chairs in the back were trying to take this all in and scribble some notes.
Our husbands, all four of them—Jeffrey, Simon, Christien, and Colton—turned from their perch in the front row and watched the brewing rugby scrum, with Simon shielding his four-year-old adopted daughter, Katie Mei, and Christien placing a protective arm across his two children. After a time Simon got into the fray, not moving from his seat but yelling back at the protesters. He was hardly a threatening presence, but he was pointing his finger menacingly and working himself up in his frustration and concern.
Then the wheels came off: from one of the middle rows, a guy in a leather jacket and spiky hair, who I assumed to be British, pushed someone, knocking him into a gendarme. A number of gendarmes rushed to separate and restrain the two people, and at some point, not surprisingly, someone overreacted to someone else’s overreaction and before long the scuffle involved a number of spectators and police.
“Allons, allons!” The gendarmes inside our cage lifted us to our feet and hurried us out of the courtroom. The door closed behind us. We were ushered into the holding area and placed in handcuffs again.
Each of my friends looked shell-shocked. We were accustomed to being the subject of strong opinions. We’d all read the various accounts of our case in the international media, stories from every continent, the most ridiculous rumors and speculation, even Facebook and Internet sites devoted to us. But this was different. This was our first encounter, up close and personal, with the reaction of ordinary French citizens.
Even though we’d read the papers and heard the stories—the overwhelming consensus of the French people was that we were guilty, guilty, guilty—it was still shocking to see it firsthand. They wanted our blood.
“We’re screwed,” said Serena. “We are so screwed.”
CHAPTER 35
UPON OUR SECOND entrance into the courtroom, the mood was decidedly reserved. There were more uniformed gendarmes than members of the public. Some of the original onlookers were no longer there, replaced with others who had been waiting in line to come in—a line that, from what I’d been told, wound through the hallways of the Palais de Justice and out onto the street.
The courtroom was fairly modern, and distinctly non-American. The back half of the courtroom was for the spectators, half a dozen benches of blond wood and some chairs placed along the back for additional seating. Over the spectators on the ground level was a balcony holding several additional rows of seating.
We were on the left side of the courtroom, enclosed in bulletproof glass that had one rectangular slit that allowed us to communicate with our attorneys, who sat in front of our cage. On the side opposite us was the prosecutor, Maryse Ballamont, seated behind a long pine table much like the one in front of the defense attorneys. At a right angle to us, seated in front of the spectators, was the partie civile—the civil party—in this case the former first lady of France, Geneviève Devereux, a stunning and fashionable redhead who once held the crown of Miss France.
The judges hadn’t yet appeared, but all the lawyers were dressed in black robes and thin white scarves that hung straight down from the center of their collars like glorified bibs. All that was missing were the old-fashioned wigs.
I turned and looked at my husband, Jeffrey, in the front row among the spectators. The families of the accused had the right to attend the trial, and all four of the husbands were there. Winnie’s two gorgeous children sat next to Christien, and Simon held his and Serena’s daughter, Katie Mei, on his lap. Bryah’s son wasn’t there and neither were my kids, at my insistence. This entire ordeal had been devastating enough for Richie and Elena—it was unbearable for me to even think about it—and they didn’t need to see this trial firsthand.
Jeffrey slowly nodded his head in my direction and gave me a warm smile. It was weird, to say the least, between us now. Neither of us was sure how to handle it. Like the rest of the world, he knew of my fling with Damon Kodiak, but he hadn’t so much as acknowledged it—I’d like to think because of the dire circumstances I faced, but probably also because his own infidelity had spanned some two years, not one night, so he could hardly throw stones from his glass house.
Regardless, Jeffrey had been decent to me over these last months. I knew this had been hard for him, too, both professionally and personally. He’d been accustomed to my caring for the home and children, when they were around, and now with our kids transferring to a school in Bern while my case was pending, Jeffrey was trying to run a household for them while managing to keep afloat at work. And that was just the day-to-day part; the emotional aspect was doubly difficult. It was Jeffrey who saw the effects of this case on our children; he was the one who held their hands as they cried themselves to sleep; he had suffered some embarrassment of his own. The list of casualties from our weekend in Monte Carlo seemed to have no end.
A high-pitched bell sounded. From the long table in the front of the courtroom, the huissier—the bailiff—stood and announced, “Le Cour.”
I stole one more glance at my husband, then the entire courtroom got to its feet as the judges entered.
CHAPTER 36
IN A TYPICAL French murder trial, the case would be heard by three judges and nine laypersons. But this wasn’t a typical murder trial. The murder of the French president was being treated as a terrorist act, something with which our lawyers took issue. So they brought our case all the way up to the Cour de Cassation, France’s supreme court—which decided that trying us as terrorists sounded like a perfectly good idea.
That meant that our case would be heard not by a combination of judges and ordinary citizens but rather by a panel composed exclusively of judges. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. My lawyer, always trying to buoy my spirits, never directly said that our chances were diminished because of the all-judge panel. But the fact that he fought the decision all the way to the nation’s highest court told me that it wasn’t the preferred outcome for us.
The long table where the judges sat was raised about two steps higher than the rest of the courtroom, but it wasn’t like the judge’s bench in an American courtroom. It was just one long table, with ordinary goosenec
ked desk lamps in front of each seat. I was used to the courtrooms I saw on American television; this looked more like a city council meeting.
From behind the wood-paneled wall, a door opened, and the judges entered the courtroom. Like the lawyers, they were wearing black robes and thin white scarves. The presiding judge—who was the only one wearing a red robe—sat in the center, and everyone in the courtroom took their seats after he did.
The four of us put on headphones, old-fashioned, clunky models with thick cushions on the ears. The presiding judge—le président juge—began to speak in French to the courtroom, but what we heard through the headphones was a woman’s voice, translating his words to English. It added just another odd element to the completely bizarre package of horrors that was the last nine months of my life.
The lawyers formally announced themselves—the lawyers representing the four defendants as well as the lawyer for the president’s widow, the civil party. The président juge then asked if there were any applications regarding “publicity,” which I didn’t understand initially but then I remembered: trials are open to the public in France unless there is a determination that allowing them to be open would constitute a danger. After what had happened thirty minutes ago, a decent case could be made that the trial should be closed. But none of the lawyers so requested, and it wasn’t likely that the judge would have granted the request, anyway. To the French citizenry, this was the most important trial in memory. It needed to take place in the open. Besides, by now there were enough gendarmes in the courtroom to invade a small country.
“The clerk will read the transfer judgment,” said the woman in her calm, soothing voice in my ear, translating the words of the président juge. This had been explained to me as the French equivalent of an indictment. After the investigating judge determines that there is a basis to charge the accused with a crime, a panel of judges hears the matter and makes the ultimate determination about whether the case should be transferred to the trial court—the Cour d’Assises. My lawyer told me that this written transfer order was typically a rather dry exposition of the evidence, but in this instance, maybe because of the high profile of this case, the panel of judges used very forceful language in describing the case against us.
I’d had the judges’ order read to me several times previously, but it was no less painful hearing it again, especially through the maddeningly moderate tone of the female translator. And it was more than painful—utterly mind-blowing, worthy of Kafka, the words delivered so gently but landing with such a damning impact. The gunpowder residue. The fingerprints. The DNA. The incriminating admissions. The misleading and deceptive statements (for which I was singled out several times). The eyewitnesses. The immoral behavior. The blackmail.
When the reading was completed, I thought to myself, This isn’t the greatest way to start a trial. Here’s everything bad we think about you…now let’s get started!
I let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling of the courtroom, at the narrow skylight that provided the only natural light in the windowless room.
A miracle, I thought. God, please give me a miracle.
“Before we begin, I would like to say a few words,” said the presiding judge.
CHAPTER 37
MONSIEUR LE PRÉSIDENT JUGE, Alfred Reynold, was a man in his late fifties with a weathered face and flowing white hair. He placed a piece of paper before him and folded his hands, which were mostly obscured by the sleeves of his red robe.
“On the day of nineteen June, 2010, this nation was attacked,” he began, via the female translator in our ears. “No bomb was detonated. No building collapsed. No city burned. But we were attacked no less.
“It was a day that will never be forgotten. Each of us will recall forever where we sat or stood when we learned of the death of the president of the French. Each of us will recall forever the sadness, the anger, and the fear. And the resolve that justice be served on those responsible for President Devereux’s death.
“On that day, we did not belong to the Union for a Popular Movement or the Socialist Party or the National Front. We were not conservative or liberal or green. We were not white or black or brown. On that day we were only French. Together we suffered. Together we mourned. Together we moved on, changed forever but resolved to honor the legacy of President Devereux.
“And together we will find justice for the president and his bodyguard, Luc Cousineau. Together we will carry out these legal proceedings with careful deliberation, firm resolve, and heavy hearts, but never forgetting that the ultimate end is justice. Because to do any less would be to disrespect the legacy of fairness and compassion that marked the public service of President Devereux.”
The courtroom was utterly silent as the judge completed his statement. Henri Devereux had been something of a rock star in this country, a flashy soccer player in the eighties who dated movie stars and heiresses, later ascending quickly through the ranks of public service. In 1995, he married Geneviève Rousseau, Miss France 1993 and fifteen years his junior, in a spectacular countryside wedding in the Loire Valley at a home owned by the family of his mentor, François Mitterrand. That same year he lost his race for the presidency but won in his second effort in 2002. He was reelected in 2007 in a landslide. With his gorgeous wife at his side and three young children, he was flamboyant and charismatic and controversial. I’d recalled various accounts of affairs and sexual exploits, but this wasn’t exactly unexpected in a French president, and there had been no indication that the citizenry’s affection for the man had dimmed whatsoever.
We were accused of killing, by all accounts, the most popular president in the history of France. And now here was the presiding judicial officer at my trial, promising the country that there would be justice for his murder.
It couldn’t get much worse than that, could it?
Famous last words.
“The court will now hear from Major Rouen,” said the judge.
CHAPTER 38
THE PRESIDING JUDGE had before him the dossier, the voluminous file that constituted the totality of the evidence gathered by the investigating judge from witness interviews, expert and forensic reports, and the like. This was, on paper, their case against us. In theory, they could skip witnesses altogether and just read through the file, let the lawyers make arguments, and announce a verdict.
The dossier was divided into four parts. Two of the parts were largely technical—official documents explaining the gathering, retention, and transfer of evidence between the police and prosecutor and court, as well as the legal decision relating to our pretrial detention. A third part was devoted to the four defendants’ personnalités, or character, if you prefer. Everything from birth certificates to interviews with friends and families.
The presiding judge, however, turned to the final section of the dossier, entitled “Pièces de fond”—On the Facts. This section contained more than two hundred documents, including witness interviews, forensic reports, photographs, and summaries of the evidence and investigation.
“Good morning, Major,” said the presiding judge.
“Good morning, Mr. President.” Major Rouen stood in the center of the courtroom, at a podium fitted with a microphone. In one corner of the room, the courtroom deputy—the greffier—angled a camera on a tripod so that it captured both the presiding judge and the major. This was not a media camera—they were barred under French law from courtrooms—but a camera ordered by the presiding judge to keep an audio and visual record of this trial, which would be held, with the official transcript, under seal.
“Major, do you have any personal or familial connection with the accused?”
“I do not,” said Rouen.
“Then please tell us what you can about the matter under examination.”
André Rouen, an eighteen-year veteran with the Paris police department, seemed like a good witness, at least judging by his appearance. He was on the tall side and fit, with sandy hair rimmed with gray at the temples, an unassuming mi
ddle-aged man who normally would blend into the background.
Major Rouen did not take an oath. In French courtrooms, cops were not sworn in because it was already their duty to testify truthfully. Rather, he proceeded directly into his narrative, including the account of his initial receipt of the phone call from the Monte Carlo police—“a call I shall never forget,” he said—and his flight down to the harbor.
“We coordinated our response with the RAID unit and Brigade General Favier of the GIGN,” he said. GIGN and RAID handled the paramilitary aspects of the operation, securing the dock and the surrounding area while Major Rouen and the National Police conducted its investigation.
Major Rouen took the presiding judge through several of the photographs contained in the dossier, discussing the positioning of the bodies of President Devereux and his bodyguard, Luc Cousineau, and the search of the Bentley convertible where they were found.
The presiding judge, leafing through the massive dossier stacked in front of him, detailed the procedures undertaken by French intelligence and the police in recovering and analyzing forensic evidence during the investigation. He then asked Rouen to summarize the ultimate findings.
“We recovered various samples of DNA from the vehicle that were tested for a match,” he said. “This included hair follicles, mucus, blood, and cerumen.”
It included a lot more than that, but he was focusing on the relevant parts.
“We obtained a match for hair follicles on the dashboard belonging to the accused, Winnie Brookes,” said Rouen. “We obtained a match for hair follicles on the passenger seat and floorboard belonging to the accused, Serena Schofield. And we obtained a match for hair follicles on the dashboard and on the rear seat on the driver’s side belonging to the accused, Abbie Elliot.”