THE ALTERNATE (Part 1)

The Alternate

by WAYNE A. BAKER aka Austin Jett

Affiliate Disclosure
Some of the links on this blog are affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products and services I genuinely believe in. Thank you for your support!

1

            The jury summons said I was to report at the courthouse at 9:00 a.m. the following Monday. The trial on the docket would require the jury to be sequestered. For my trouble, I could expect to receive just a bit over thirty dollars per day.

             I considered blowing it off, disregarding it completely. Then I remembered a neighbor lady from when I lived in Indiana, who’s summons didn’t arrive until later in the same day she was supposed to report. They actually sent a deputy sheriff to her house to harass her and threaten to place her under arrest. Eventually, she got it all straightened out, but who needs that kind of hassle? So, I figured I’d honor my obligation and report as ordered. Other plans would have to wait. And, I’ll be honest, I had more than a passing interest on a case that was going to be tried that week.

2 

Monday morning, I awoke from a vivid dream in which I’d been throwing snowballs at Al Gore from the bed of a moving pickup truck. I lay there, trying to make some sense of it while still in that groggy, not quite awake but not asleep either state for a few minutes. I yawned and rolled over, burrowed back into the pillow and closed my eyes. Then, just a millisecond before drifting off again, I realized something was wrong. My eyes popped open, and immediately I saw the digital alarm clock, which read 8:21. “Oh, Geez!” I cried out. I had thirty-nine minutes to get to the courthouse.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed my blue jeans off the floor. I tried putting them on while hustling down the hall to the bathroom, got a foot caught in the pant leg, hopped a couple of times, and then fell face first onto the floor. The fall caused my back to begin to spasm, and it was a full two minutes before I could get up.

The back spasms had begun the previous evening, after having spent all day Sunday helping my friend Lucy move into her new apartment. Washing machines should come equipped with wheels, all apartment buildings should have elevators, and middle-aged guys should know to pay someone else to do the grunt work.

I had taken some Tylenol PM to kill the pain. The pills made me drowsy, and I had evidently failed to set the alarm clock. I was out the door by 8:32. I just might make it in time, if all the traffic lights were green, and I drove like a maniac.

3 

All the lights were red. Traffic was heavy, at times barely moving. A repeating chime directed my attention to the amber LOW FUEL annunciator on the dashboard. I glanced at my fuel gauge, then the clock. 9:02, and I was only halfway there. I was officially late. Nothing could be done about it. No sense in running out of gas to make things worse. I pulled into the 7 – Eleven, swiped my credit card and set the fuel nozzle to run while I hurried inside for coffee and a doughnut.

It was 9:24 when the courthouse came into view. Naturally, all the parking spaces were full, and I had to park three blocks away. By the time I made it into the building, my back was really hurting, and I could barely shuffle along. On top of that, the coffee had found its way through my plumbing system and I had to piss like a racehorse. Finding the men’s room was fairly easy. Not counting the fact that my back was still hurting like a son of a bitch, I was optimistic enough to think that maybe the whole day wouldn’t be so bad after all.

4 

“You were supposed to be here at nine o’clock,” said the bailiff, a gruff-looking, middle-aged black woman.

On the way there, I’d concocted a story. I sighed, exhaling heavily for emphasis, smiled, and shook my head, “You wouldn’t believe what happened. I was—”

“You’re right,” she scowled. “I wouldn’t believe it. Take a seat and wait.”

5

Jury selection began about ten-thirty for a murder trial. Some of my fellow potential jurors were excused because they admitted to having heard about the case. Heck, who hadn’t heard of the case? It had been all over the news for the last eight months. One or two in the jury pool had been represented by the defense attorney some time in the past and, although technically eligible to serve by virtue of a Not Guilty verdict, were deemed unacceptable by the prosecution for the obvious reason that they might be biased toward the defense. The defense also blackballed a few that they found unacceptable.

I could have – should have – been excused, for you see, I had first hand knowledge of the case. In fact, I was the only one in the entire room – the entire world – who knew for a fact that the defendant, some poor schmuck named Blake Allen, was not guilty. How did I know, you ask? I was the one who had done it.

6

Harvey Wilson was dead. And the world was a better place as a result. He had committed the worst offense against humanity, again and again, stealing the joy of life, the innocence, from defenseless children. The man was pure evil. He had ruined lives, destroyed families, and was responsible for at least one person committing suicide. His victims were so terrified of him that he had never paid the price. Not once. I don’t know about you, but I found that to be unacceptable.

I’d spent months researching and devising my plan, and then when the time came, mere seconds executing it. A lowlife predator got what he deserved. Harvey Wilson was dead, and I had killed him. Suffice it to say, I had my reasons. Turns out, killing him was the easy part.

When I had taken action to remove the threat of Harvey Wilson ever harming another child, I believed, as I still do, that it was morally justified, necessary. I took care to cover my tracks, but certainly had no intention of framing someone else. Now this dumbass father of one of the kids manages to get arrested for it. Blake Allen had drawn attention to himself, threatened the guy in front of witnesses.

The prosecution could probably phone this one in, unless the jury was sympathetic to the defendant. So much so that they would return a Not Guilty no matter how damning the evidence. Hey, it happens. Just ask O.J.

The real question – the one that I still hadn’t answered – was what I would do if Mr. Allen were to be found guilty. Would I write an anonymous letter to the police, or the prosecutor’s office, providing details only the true killer could possibly know? And, if I waited until the verdict had been rendered, would it then be too late? Would anyone care at that point? Anyone other than Blake Allen? Maybe I should write that letter sooner, rather than later.

I gave that one a lot of thought and decided against it. If I did it now, it might very well remove suspicion from Blake Allen, or at the very least provide reasonable doubt. But there was also the danger that it could reopen the investigation and there might be one minute detail, one small shred of evidence, that would lead them to me. No, like it or not, Blake Allen had placed himself under suspicion without any help from me. You don’t go around making threats on someone’s life, even if they don’t deserve to live. He was going to have to go through the inconvenience of temporary incarceration and trial. But, unbeknownst to him, he had an ace in the hole. All it would take would be one Not Guilty vote. One juror who would not bend.

7

It wasn’t all that difficult to become one of the fourteen chosen to sit in the jury box. Not twelve. Fourteen. As it was explained to us, in order to cover unforeseen circumstances, such as sickness, death, inappropriate behavior, et cetera, it is common to choose a couple of alternate jurors. All fourteen of us would listen to the case as if we would be deciding it. Once the jury went to deliberate the case, any remaining alternates would be dismissed. If a problem arose after that with a sick juror, or whatever, those remaining would be charged with coming up with the verdict. The idea, I suppose, is that once deliberations have begun, it only muddies the water to bring in someone who has not been a part of that deliberation from the beginning. Makes sense.

I was the second alternate. If I was going to be of any help in preventing an innocent man from going to prison for many years, I had to come up with a plan, find a way to get not one, but two jurors out of the way sometime before the end of the trial.