A Ghost's Testimony

After the living and the dead decided to merge worlds, the supreme court was flooded with appeals. With “coexist” being a hot topic in the first half of the 21^st century, most people thought it would be a great idea to create a union between the two worlds. They thought they’d get their loved ones back; they thought they’d get access to generational wisdom from their deceased elders back, and perhaps, some old family recipes could finally resurface. People could only think of the missing pieces in their lives that they wanted to finally have sewn up with the help of a familiar, ghostly face around. It was an oversight, to say the least, that with ghosts being (almost) as accessible as the living there would now be witnesses for crimes where before there had been none. It actually caused a lot of chaos across the criminal justice system, especially for police officers who had tampered with evidence to shut a case quickly; for gang members who’d offed witnesses to shut their mouths; and it was a goddamn headache for judges who had to reopen every murder case from the last several decades that now suddenly had a victim who could tell their side of the story.

But for Jeremy Strout, it was a lifeline. He’d been sitting on death row for fifteen years after being convicted of four heinous murders: his wife and three children. At the time of his conviction, there’d been no one there to defend him, just whispers from neighbors who’d said they’d heard him yelling in his house hours before the bodies were discovered. It didn’t help that he was the one who’d called 911 and then was found at the scene of the crime covered in their blood. It didn’t help that he’d sought out anger management before in his past. Rumors swam through town like a broken dam, neighbors speculating that he hadn’t wanted their third child – that little Harley Sue was a mistake Mrs. Strout made Jeremy keep – and that he’d finally snapped under the pressure of three small children and a wife whose fertility had betrayed him.

Jeremy had always denied the rumors, claiming that he loved his family. Sure, they had their problems, and he never denied the hardship of not only providing for three children under five, but living under the same roof as them! Nevertheless, he remained adamant in his defense: he would never harm them.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. Statistically, said the prosecutor, people are more likely to be killed by their spouse than any other person in the world. And of course, Mr. Strout could not leave his children to live after killing Mrs. Strout, because who would take care of the children while he was at work! And if he had not done it, then why so much blood, not only on his clothes, but in his fingernails, wedged between eyebrow hairs, and in the wrinkles of his temples? And the even bigger question, if Mr. Strout had not murdered his family, then who did?

There had never been another suspect. The police never really took the time to consider one, their minds made up before they could produce an alternative. It really was easier just to blame the husband. What jury wouldn’t go for that?

“Today our jury gets to hear a new side to the story,” Jeremy’s defense attorney told the courtroom at his appeal hearing, nearly two decades after his family's murders. “From Mrs. Strout’s perspective.” Mr. Alcott enticed the crowd with a smile that said he had a secret, one he was eager to share. Attorneys could be a bit performative in their speeches, and Mr. Alcott was no less confident. The union between the dead and the living truly did save some attorney’s careers, as it had not always been everyday that they could produce eye witness testimony that could turn a case on its heel. Some started getting big heads about it, as if they had more power than the judges, and Mr. Alcott’s once regular-shaped head was slowly growing in size. Jeremy, who’d known him since his family’s gruesome deaths, knew that Mr. Alcott came from a humble and passionate place: he just wanted to help people. And more than anything on this day, he wanted to help Jeremy.

The only problem with ghosts as witnesses was time. The worlds were combined, yes, ghosts were all around. But time for the living and time for the dead, they existed on two separate lines, intersecting at points that were not always convenient. Ghosts floated from here to there, there to here, teleporting across space and time, and their biggest adjustment to being reunited with the living was adhering to the old, third dimensional clock. You could not simply tell a ghost to show up in court at 9AM and expect them to find where that time existed for them. The closest thing living humans had to relate this ghostly state of nonlinear existence was to elderly people with dementia. They hopped from place to place, time to time, without any real sense of how they got there. Ghost therapists, a new occupation created by the psychologists, blended a team of living and dead to try to help condition ghosts into grasping the concept of earthly time, but like any therapy, it was not an immediate remedy.

Realistically, Mr. Alcott could only hope that Mrs. Strout would appear in court. But there was no way to be certain she would find her way there at the right time and place of the court hearing. Yet, still, he spoke as if there were not a single doubt in his mind.

“Today, we will get to hear an eye witness account of the events that took place on October 26, 2023, from one of the victim’s perspectives. And how grateful are we that it is now possible,” Mr. Alcott turned to face Jeremy Strout, seated at the defense table, shackled at his wrists and ankles, both sets of chains locked in place by a hook on the tabletop and the floor. Jeremy was trembling, just as nervous as he was during his first trial (which certainly had not helped his case). He tapped his feet anxiously, and Mr. Alcott took his seat beside him.

“Don’t you worry, Jeremy. I’ve spoken to Mrs. Strout, and I know she wants to be here. She feels just awful that all of this has fallen on you. I have no doubt she will find her way here, even with those kids of yours keepin’ her busy – who’da thought dead kids could still be such a handful? HA!” Jeremy didn’t laugh, so Mr. Alcott cleared his throat. “She’s got a wonderful therapist, Jeremy. They’ve been working really hard on timeliness so she can be here for you today. He's the best therapist around. He worked so hard when he was alive, it nearly killed him! HA – HA! But really, it was the alcohol that did it.”

Despite Mr. Alcott’s poor humor, his assurances did give Jeremy hope. After all, that was all he had left.

The courtroom remained mostly silent as the hours carried on, everyone waiting, now accustomed to the concept of ghostly testimonies and also of their inability to make prompt appearances. If people had thought court cases dragged on before, waiting on a dead person to show up had made the old ways seem swift.

Every so often as the clock ticked, a ghost would find themselves in the pews alongside the other patient attendees, causing a stir in the crowd. An elderly man piped up around the second long hour, reminiscing: “I remember when they built this courthouse in 1949…” Apparently, he had been a little boy with a dream of becoming the president one day, at the time fascinated by the building’s exterior columns and interior mahogany. On the third hour, a child ghostling chased a ball around the court room giggling about how his dad used to work upstairs. On the fourth hour, a former janitor peeked his head in to see if the garbage needed to be changed.

It was the fifth hour when the judge, who had spent nearly all of the hours engrossed in a book, announced that if Mrs. Strout did not find her way here in ten minutes, her testimony would have to be rescheduled and the court would be adjourned. Jeremy’s foot resumed its tapping.

Mr. Alcott nudged him, winking. “She’ll be here.”

Jeremy’s hope was nearly run dry when the clock struck five hours and eleven minutes since the court hearing was set to start. The banging from the judge’s gavel was still resounding while a symphony of people gathering their things and sighing at the wasted day trickled across the room. All of it was at just the perfect volume for Mrs. Strout’s meager voice to almost be missed. Almost.

“Hello?” she said. “Hello? Did I make it on time?”

The noise in the room was like a faucet sputtering out until it finally stilled. Everyone froze in their tracks and turned towards the voice to find an equally meager and transparent figure seated at the witness stand. When Jeremy laid eyes on her, she looked as beautiful as the day he married her. (Not appearing in the form in which one died was a feature of ghosthood that all appreciated.)

“Senora?” Jeremy whispered.

At her name, the ghost frantically searched for its source. When she landed on Jeremy, relief softened and warmed her face. “Jeremy,” she smiled. Then as if her reason for being here suddenly rushed to her mind, she jerked towards the judge, who was still frozen in his half-standing, half-seated stance, considering if he should allow this hearing to take place. “Your Honor, you have to set him free! He’s innocent. Please!” She pleads.

“Senora, where are the kids?” Jeremy asked, worriedly.

His ghastly wife faced him again. “They’re fine, dear. Well, they’re dead, but they’re fine. They’re at the park, playing.”

Jeremy thought of little Harley Sue, not even two when she passed, off at the park playing without an adult. Senora read his expression. “I figure not much else can happen to them now,” she shrugged, forcing a laugh.

Mr. Alcott, who was already up on his feet, cleared his throat and approached the judge’s bench, nodding a hello to Mrs. Strout. “Your Honor, would you please allow Mrs. Strout to give her testimony? We’ve waited all this time, and if we prolong it any further, we cannot guarantee her appearance again.”

The judge was tired and hungry and ready to sit on his couch and kick his feet up. But he was also reasonable. He surrendered a sigh. “Alright, alright, Mr. Alcott. Court re-instated.” He tapped his gavel, and the jurors all groaned as they found their seats again. “Make it quick, Mrs. Strout. We had all day, but that day is nearly gone.”

Mr. Alcott turned to Jeremy, giving him two thumbs up. Jeremy released all of the air he was holding onto. Mrs. Strout nodded and straightened in her seat, running her hands across her lap as if to flatten her dress. Out of habit – most ghosts seemed to retain this gesture – Mrs. Strout inhaled before she spoke.

“The day I died, there was a harvest moon on the rise…the children were loud and the house was a mess and the fridge was nearly empty. I hadn’t gotten to laundry in over a week! It was a pretty typical day in our house, actually,” Mrs. Strout joked. Only a few in the room offered an empathetic laugh.

The judge was less patient. “Mrs. Strout, while I have sympathy for your tragic death and the death of your three children, you are here to tell us if it was that man – Mr. Jeremy Strout – who did it. We do not need a bedtime story.”

Jeremy flinched at another man telling his wife what to do. “Let her speak!”

The judge shot him a daring gaze. Mr. Alcott squeezed his shoulder. Senora thanked him with her eyes, but behind them was a painful secret rising to the surface.

“Of course, Your Honor. I know I’ve already taken up a lot of your time,” she said, addressing the whole courtroom full of people. Then she looked down at her lap, twiddling her fingers. “The truth is…My children and I were killed by one of their parents…”

A gasp echoed across the walls of the room, and an uproar of whispers scattered like static. Mr. Alcott and Jeremy shared a confused stare.

The judge banged his gavel. “Order! Order!”

Everyone started to hush but it wasn’t until Senora shouted that silence fully resumed. “But it wasn’t Jeremy!” Senora was crying now, looking directly at her husband. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

Jeremy’s foot stopped bouncing. His mind was trying to solve an impossible puzzle. All these years, people had assumed he had murdered his entire family, but the truth was he honestly didn’t know what had happened to them. Just like he’d told the police, he’d come home from a long day at work and walked into the most horrific and life-shattering scene he’d ever witnessed. No one believed him.

Senora’s sobs were the only sound in the courtroom as everyone patiently waited for her to collect herself. Thankfully, Kleenex had developed a ghost-friendly facial tissue and one of the guard’s brought it over to her. She wiped her eyes and spoke sternly, as if she had not just been wailing with abandon. “Your Honor, you need to release my husband from prison right now.”

“What are you saying, Senora?” Jeremy whispered.

The next words that Jeremy’s wife spoke were undeniably the most important of his entire life. More life-altering than the ones spoken by the police who arrested him and the judge who convicted him. Senora’s words freed Jeremy Strout from a prison death sentence and cleared his name of all criminal charges. But in the same instance, her words shackled him all over again, leaving him forever haunted by the truth.

“Jeremy Strout did not kill our children,” she said. “I did.”