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458 ANN RULE
"She pulled herself up and arranged a smile on her face.
Chris was crying--but Diane managed to keep that smile."
Jack Hamann calls out, "What was going through your mind
when you heard the verdict?"
"I don't know," Diane answers flatly. "What am I supposed
to think?"
"Were the verdicts a surprise?"
"Obviously ..."
Diane smiles until the doors of the jail wagon close behind
her. Only then does she cry.
At 1:10 a.m., Jim Jagger answers reporters' questions. No, he
was not surprised at the verdict; he knew that the jurors had
voted to convict Diane of the four lesser charges rather early in
their deliberations, that there had been only one hold-out in the
voting to convict her of murder. Yes, certainly, he had warned
Diane that it wasn't going to be good.
Upstairs in Judge Greg Foote's chambers, Foote had ordered
champagne and strawberries to be shared when the trial was
finally over. It was not a celebration party; rather, it was Foote's
way of rewarding his staff for their support over the long haul.
Foote, his secretary, Marj McElhose, his law clerk, Sharon Roe,
and his reporter, Kay Cates, and her fiance, gathered to mark the
end of something that had consumed their lives for a solid year.
Greg Foote knew that Diane's sentencing loomed ahead, but for
now there was respite, and he was mightily grateful to his staff for
sticking with the case with as much dedication as he himself felt.
Fred Hugi would have been invited, but he had already
ducked out of the courthouse. He had spotted Anne Bradley
headed his way, and even though he likes Bradley, he had no
comments for the press. Hugi headed into the night, back up
along the river toward home.
The reading of the verdict had been basically ceremonial for
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him. Jim Jagger had already called Hugi with tentative congratulations
on the lesser charges, saying, "I'm still hoping for a holdout."
And, indeed there had been one. Rumors later mentioned one
juror and then another as the one who'd balked. No one would
ever know for sure; the jurors kept the answer to themselves. The
question that kept coming up before a unanimous decision could
be reached had been: "If the case was so strong, why did the
State have to wait for Christie to remember?" One of the questions
Hugi suspected might come up.
SMALL SACRIFICES 459
Still, Fred Hugi had remained confident that the jurors would
ultimately be unanimous on the murder charge.
And he'd been right.
Hugi was tiredùbut tired the way he felt at the end of a long
run. The tension that had walked with him for more than a year
was gone. He had begun the trial over one hundred seventy-five
pounds. He now weighed one hundred sixty.
Judge Foote and his staff left the courthouse and went out for
a late meal. The news of the verdict had hit the news at 1:00 a.m.
Cars were honking along the streets, almost as if a war had ended.
As Foote and his group walked into the Electric Station, diners in
the restaurant stood up and applauded.
It was June 17, 1984, almost two o'clock in the morning. The
sky was clear. The moon was seven-eighths full.
It was Father's Day.
CHAPTER 44
Ten days later--on June 27--Doug Welch and Chris Rosage drove
Diane to Sacred Heart Hospital in Eugene. Her labor was induced
at 4:30 that afternoon, and throughout that warm evening Diane's
contractions accelerated. Chris stayed with her; if she had not,
Diane would have been alone in her labor. Wes and Willadene
were not there, nor any of the rest of her family.
Welch waited in the hallway. He heard Diane cry out only a
few times. Women in other labor rooms screamed and moaned,
and some cursed their husbands--but not Diane. She was stoic in
her pain.
At Diane's request, Chris Rosage went into the delivery room
with her. It was a far, far cry from the joyous scene at Jennifer's
birth in Louisville two years earlier. There were no grateful parents
crying with her.
Amy Elizabeth Downs was born at 10:06 p.m. She weighed
eight pounds, five ounces and she was twenty and one half inches
long. Diane had reconsidered her choice of "Charity Lynn" after
hearing Hugi describe her babies as "fungible." Amy Elizabeth
was a lovely baby who looked to Diane much like Christie had at
birth. She had almond-shaped eyes and long slender fingers.
Diane was allowed to hold her baby for a long time. She even
let Welch hold her. Perhaps the birth experience had mitigated
Diane's animosity toward Welch. More likely, Fred Hugi had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]