Miss Margaret Cromley

Sensitive Content: Mentions of gun violence, murder, and misogyny.

Soft and creamy, warm on the nose like melted icing. A hint of something brown, of something that burns, mixing with the sweetness and surrendering to its strength.

Margo breathed in deep through her nose, her shoulders hunching up to her ears. The scent lingered in the air, danced across the AC induced breeze, and catapulted her back, back, back, to a time she didn’t much think about these days. Flashes of childhood followed the smell. Flashes of lake days, pads of the feet blackened from dancing shoeless on concrete, mosquitoes and trailer park sleepovers, all under the humid Northern Californian sun.

Nostalgia wasn’t a strong enough word to express the way that smell made Margo feel. It wasn’t the vanilla of cookies and cakes, but the buttery aroma of scented lotion. Her grandmother’s scented lotion, who tended to her rose bushes no matter how hard it was on her back, and who had the nicest mobile home in all the trailer park.

Margo swallowed against the pain that’d started in her nose and settled deep into her throat. What she wouldn’t give to be under that NorCal sun now, breathing in her grandmother’s scent.

“The prosecution calls Katherine Anthony to the stand.”

Margo didn’t bristle until Lenny placed his firm hand on her shoulder. They’d practiced this and Lenny had held up his end, but she’d forgotten the jury was watching. She returned to the script and gave Lenny an appreciative look, her hands folding in her lap. And, most importantly, she turned her gaze on Mrs. Anthony with the sheepishness and innocence of the perfect little girl she was dressed as. Her own mother had plaited her long dark hair that morning, and she was adorned in her father’s reading glasses.

Mrs. Anthony sat on the stand in her Sunday best, her blonde hair flat ironed and pinned up. The sparkle in her eyes and the purse of her lips suggested she was only a few questions away from shedding a tear. Her shoulders were turned towards the prosecutor and with clear purposefulness, she didn’t look Margo’s way.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Anthony,” the prosecutor said. “I first just want to say I’m very sorry for your loss and I thank you for testifying here today.”

Mrs. Anthony inclined her head diplomatically. Margo was struck with the thought that she wasn’t the only one with a script.

“Can you tell us about your son, Mrs. Anthony?”

The prosecutor was a balding man in a plain suit and his voice was filled with a softness he reserved only for the Anthony family. Margo could only see half of his face but she recognized the sympathetic smile, the I know it hurts, you’re so brave smile. As Lenny had cautioned only about a million times, Margo kept her cynicism off her face.

“My son,” Mrs. Anthony started breathily. Her eyes shined ever bright under the court room’s florescent lighting but her lips attempted to form a smile. Margo wondered if there was a scent that could time travel Mrs. Anthony back to better times, to childhood summers. Or a song, maybe. One Mr. and Mrs. Anthony would sing, their two small children learning more and more of the lyrics every time it played on the radio.

“Colin was a good boy. His friends always called him a mama’s boy but he never cared.” Mrs. Anthony allowed herself a small laugh. “He was smart and outgoing. Graduated college with honors. Never…” She sniffed, her head bowing. “He never did anything in his life to deserve this and I miss him every day.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Anthony. He sounds wonderful.” The prosecutor spared a glance at the jury.

Part of Margo’s script was to keep eyes off the jury at all times. But she couldn’t help her eyes wandering, and in that moment they seemed to like Mrs. Anthony. The jury was made up of more men than women and was a chorus line of sympathetic faces for the grieving mother.

“Now, before the defense tries to spin the narrative--”

“Objection,” Lenny said coolly.

“Sustained.”

The judge was perched high up on her throne, swimming in her black robes and half tamed red hair. She wore thick rimmed glasses and peered over them like a hawk, a frown for the prosecutor on her lips. She was a judge they liked, Lenny had said some months ago, a left leaning feminist that donated lots of money to just causes. The kind of just causes that might get Margo a lighter sentence.

“I’ll rephrase.” The prosecutor cleared his throat. “Before the defense asks, Mrs. Anthony, let’s just get this out of the way. You and your family do hold conservative politics, correct?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Anthony said.

“And you hold these values because of your religion and you don’t hate--”

“Objection. Counselor is testifying.”

“Sustained.”

The prosecutor rephrased again, saying, “Why do you hold conservative values?”

Margo shifted in her seat, her ass starting to go numb, a tickle starting in her throat from the strong AC. Sometimes the law felt like a whole lot of circling the point. She could already imagine what Mrs. Anthony would say, and she knew the cross Lenny would give, and she was beginning to find it all a little tedious. The rest of her young adult life was on the line and the lawyers were pawing at each other like a couple of kittens with some yarn.

“We’re Christians. We live our lives by what’s true to the Bible. But we believe everybody is a child of God.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Anthony.”

Lenny rose to his feet and approached Mrs. Anthony slowly. He wasn’t show boaty but he dressed nicer than the prosecutor, his suit a deep blue and made from thicker, stronger cloth. He came to a stop and folded his hands in front of himself, his lips thinned.

“So you think abortion is murder?”

“Objection!” the prosecutor said hotly, shooting to his feet. “Relevance? Not to mention prejudicial.”

Lenny offered a deep and apologetic shrug to the judge. “Prosecution raised the topic of conservative Christian values. I’m simply asking Mrs. Anthony about those values.”

The judge hesitated, her eyes squinting. “Overruled.” She nodded her head towards the witness box. “You may answer the question.”

Mrs. Anthony shifted in her seat. “I believe life begins at conception.”

Lenny waited a beat. “So you believe abortion is murder?”

“Objection, your honor! Asked and answered.”

The judge peered at the prosecutor over her glasses. “Not quite, counselor. Mrs. Anthony, please answer the question.”

Mrs. Anthony cleared her throat. “Yes.”

There was a cough and a few whispers that rose in the benches behind Margo.

“And you’d agree that you raised your son with that ideology? As well as other conservative ideologies.”

“Yes.”

Lenny returned to the defense table. He offered Margo a smile and a wink but she was on script and so she ignored it.

Lenny whisked a paper away and held it in front of his eyes as if he needed glasses, his index finger resting on his lips. “I’d like to read you a post made by your son--”

“Your honor, again, I have to object to this post being read before the jury. It’s beyond prejudicial and--”

“I overruled in pre-trial hearings and I’m overruling now,” the judge said firmly.

“A post made by your son, Mrs. Anthony,” Lenny continued. “On January 7th, 2021, Colin Anthony posted Next we should raid PP and see to all the murderesses that get to walk free.” There was a humph or two from the benches but Margo couldn’t read the faces of the jury. “Could you deduce for me what PP might be?”

Mrs. Anthony hummed as if she was thinking. “No, I have no idea what that means.”

“It means--”

“Objection. Defense has no way of knowing what Colin Anthony meant.”

“No way of knowing? I think it’s pretty clear what Colin is referring to here. Murderesses? He’s making a call to action to raid--”

“A call to action?” The prosecutor scoffed and waved his hand at Lenny. “Your honor, I’m confused what bearing any of this has on this case. Mr. Anthony was murdered in cold blood for no apparent reason other than the whims of the accused. I propose defense’s cross be thrown--”

“You don’t think threatening to raid a clinic that specializes in women’s healthcare might constitute an apparent reason? That it doesn’t strike fear or the desire to protect oneself? Or perhaps the vile things he said at the rally might constitute an apparent reason? There’s plenty of video and audio of his speech that could be played for the jury.”

“Video and audio that would show your client shooting Mr. Anthony point blank in the face.”

Mrs. Anthony was sobbing now but neither of the lawyers seemed to notice. Margo watched in silence as the woman cried into her hand, her shoulders racking violently. But she muffled the sound. She had enough dignity to do that.

“The defense stipulates Miss Margaret Cromley shot and killed Mr. Anthony,” Lenny said calmly. “I’m trying to inform the jury why.”

“Would the defense also like to stipulate that Mr. Anthony’s murder was premeditated?”

The judge banging her gavel silenced the lawyers’ bickering. It even squeezed one last squeak out of Mrs. Anthony and then she was quiet, her hands rubbing at her damp eyes.

“Do you have anything else for this witness?”

“No, your honor.”

“Redirect, your honor?”

Lenny and the prosecutor switched off.

“Mrs. Anthony, had your son ever been outwardly violent?”

“No,” she said weakly.

“Had he…ever shot a gun?”

“Once with his father when he was quite young.”

“And does his father have a concealed carry license?”

“Objection,” Lenny said. “Beyond the scope.”

“I’m tempted to overrule that, counselor,” the judge said.

“Whether or not Mr. Anthony has a concealed carry license has no bearing on whether or not he had guns in the home, or whether or not Colin ever shot those guns.”

The prosecutor let out a bitter laugh. “What the defense isn’t saying is that Mr. Cromley had a concealed carry license and guns in the home and that’s why he wants you to think it’s beyond the scope.”

“Objection!”

“I’ll withdraw. I have no further questions for this witness, your honor.” Just as soon as Mrs. Anthony reclaimed her spot on the benches, the prosecutor said, “I would like to submit a piece of evidence--”

Margo watched the cat and mouse game with disinterest, a warm and heavy fuzz creeping into her brain. She hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and despite the chill in the room, she was starting to doze. She blinked her eyes long and hard, sparing a glance at the jury, but they were much more interested in the cat fight.

“--reading these messages would be highly prejudicial, your honor!”

The judge just looked at Lenny. “Didn’t work for him, won’t work for you. Overruled.”

Lenny collapsed into his seat with a huff. “If this is what I think it is, it’s not good,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

“Why not?” Margo whispered.

“Goes to premeditation.”

Margo sat back in her chair and watched as the prosecution readied himself to read. He cleared his throat as if he were about to recite Shakespeare, an annoyingly satisfied look on his face. Margo thought this might be one of those bells that couldn’t be unrung. It was nowhere in her script that she was to testify, as Lenny thought it was the worst idea he’d ever heard, and so whatever was read aloud from that piece of paper, she couldn’t deny or defend. She tugged at one of her braids, rolled the plaits in between her fingers, and wondered if her mom would still come and braid her hair in prison.

“I’m so tired of these men saying and doing whatever they want. Nothing is gonna get better until these people start dying. I hate guns but maybe they’d think twice staring down the ass end of a pistol.” The prosecutor paused for effect. “To which Miss Cromley’s friend replied lol yeah I know right.”

Margo could feel the eyes of the jury on her but she was on script and so she didn’t look back. But all twenty four eyes burned into her face, her braided hair and the cute frilly collar on her dress. She looked like an American Girl doll, now fully equipped with matching pistol. Maybe they’d even come out with a special edition of her in an orange jumpsuit and chains. The thought triggered a silent and foreboding sense of dread, thick and spiked and full of regret. Though what she regretted, she couldn’t be quite sure.

The defense will stipulate she was aiming for his mouth so he’d shut up, she thought to herself. It bounced around in her brain. None of the things he said would make it into court. Nothing about women deserving it. Nothing about your body, my choice. The defense will stipulate she’s an evil murderess he didn’t get the chance to see to.

“The prosecution rests.”

***

“The jury is back,” Lenny said and looked up from his phone.

“Two days,” Margo said. “Is that good or bad?” She could hear the frailty in her voice and cleared her throat.

Lenny sighed. “You can never really know.”

Back at the court house, outside of the court room Margo had come to know pretty well, a woman walked by. She kept her distance, clearly skirting the perimeter of the defense team, her arms clutched tightly across her chest. She seemed a bit young and frail, like something was weighing on her, but that wasn’t what caught Margo’s attention. It was the way she smelled. Vanilla. Warm summer days.

She disappeared into the court room, leaving a trail of the sweet scent behind her. Inside, she was hugging Mrs. Anthony tightly, their blonde hair and oval jaws strikingly similar.