Chapter 9 - The Anatomy of a Plea
Three weeks later, the snow had begun to fall in earnest over the eastern slopes of the Cascades.
It was not the dirty, ash-choked gray fluff of August, but the clean, heavy, crystalline white of late November, piling six inches deep on the granite steps of the Chelan County Superior Courthouse in Wenatchee.
Inside Courtroom 3B, the radiator clanked with a steady, rhythmic hiss that smelled of baked dust and iron steam.
I sat in the front row of the spectator gallery, directly behind the prosecution’s table.
I was wearing a simple charcoal wool coat, my hair pulled back with a tortoiseshell clip, June resting in my arms beneath an oversized fleece bunting that had been a gift from the volunteer firefighters of Station 4. Her cheeks were pink from the morning wind, her small, round face relaxed in the deep, unbothered sleep of a child who had never known a room that wasn't warm.
At the defense table, twenty feet away, sat Brett.
He was not wearing his three-piece charcoal suit.
He wore an orange canvas jumpsuit with the letters CCJ stenciled across the shoulder blades in black stencil ink. His hands were shackled at the wrists, the chrome chain connected to a heavy leather transport belt that locked his elbows against his ribs. His sandy hair had been cut down to the scalp by the jail barber, revealing two pale, jagged scars near his left ear that I had never noticed during six years of marriage.
Beside him sat his attorney—not the high-priced appellate specialist from Seattle his mother had promised, but a tired-looking public defender named Vance who spent half his time reviewing the sentencing guidelines through a pair of scratched reading glasses.
Eleanor was not in the room.
Her bail had been set at two million dollars, cash only, which her remaining relatives in Spokane had declined to post after the Department of Revenue placed tax liens on every square foot of real property bearing the Keene name. She was currently in the medical wing of the regional corrections center, being treated for hypertensive crisis and chronic dehydration.
Judge Arthur Vance looked down from the bench, his spectacles resting halfway down his long, aristocratic nose.
"Mr. Keene," the judge said, his voice resonant, cutting through the steam of the radiators with the weight of an iron bell. "The state has tendered an amended information charging you with one count of Attempted Premeditated Murder in the First Degree under RCW 9A.32.030, one count of First-Degree Arson under RCW 9A.48.020, and two counts of Aggravated Insurance Fraud."
The judge leaned forward, his forearms resting on the polished oak of the bench.
"Have you reviewed this agreement with your counsel?"
Brett didn't look at the judge. He kept his eyes pinned to the green felt blotter on the table before him, his fingers twitching against the links of his belly chain.
"Yes, Your Honor," his voice was barely a croak.
"And do you understand that by entering a plea of guilty to these charges, you surrender your right to a trial by jury, your right to confront the witnesses against you, and your right to an appeal on all non-jurisdictional grounds?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"How do you plead to Count One: Attempted Premeditated Murder in the First Degree?"
A silence descended on the courtroom, so absolute that the scratching of the court reporter’s steno machine sounded like a mouse chewing through drywall.
Brett swallowed hard. A single tear tracked through the gray stubble on his cheek, dropping onto the legal paper before him without making a sound.
"Guilty," he whispered.
"I didn't hear you, Mr. Keene," Judge Vance said, his voice dropping into pure ice.
Brett lifted his head by half an inch, his eyes darting toward the gallery for a fraction of a second before hitting the floorboards again.
"Guilty, Your Honor," he said, loud enough for the microphone to catch.
"And to Count Two: First-Degree Arson?"
"Guilty."
The judge marked three lines on the docket sheet with his gold fountain pen.
"Under the terms of the agreement negotiated by the Special Investigations Division," Judge Vance said, "the state recommends a sentence within the exceptional aggravated range: twenty-four years and eight months on Count One, to run consecutively with seventy-two months on Count Two, with zero eligibility for earned early release credits prior to the completion of eighty-five percent of the statutory minimum."
Brett didn't flinch. He looked like a man who had already spent three months at the bottom of a dry well, listening to the bucket being pulled up without him.
"Furthermore," the judge continued, "pursuant to the provisions of RCW 11.84—the Slayer Statute of the State of Washington—the defendant is hereby declared legally predeceased for all matters pertaining to the estate of Arthur Vance, the Natalie Keene Trust, and the real property described as Parcels 4 through 8 of the Pine Ridge Subdivision."
Judge Vance looked over his glasses, his gaze traveling past Brett to settle directly on me.
"The real property, the entirety of the municipal timber salvage rights, and the full corpus of the five-million-dollar Great Western life insurance policy are hereby assigned in fee simple to June Keene, under the sole, permanent conservatorship of her mother, Natalie Keene."
The gavel came down.
Crack.
The sound was sharp, dry, and absolute.
Two transport deputies stepped forward, caught Brett by the upper arms, and lifted him from his chair.
He didn't turn to look at me as they walked him toward the heavy steel holding door on the left side of the bench. He kept his head down, his orange trousers rustling against the floor, his chains clinking with a rhythmic, mechanical cadence that faded into the concrete corridor behind the wall.
The heavy steel door clicked shut.
The solenoid engaged with a dull, final thunk.
May you like
I looked down at June.
She had slept through the entire proceeding, her face pressed against the wool of my lapel, her tiny hand curled around my little finger with a grip that was warm, stubborn, and completely unbroken.
