Practice to Deceive

again, Brenna Douglas was absent from the courtroom. Greg Banks had told her of the new date and time—but she said she was afraid media crews from around the country would be there and she would be exposed by television coverage.
    Brenna had had no choice but to testify six weeks earlier, but she never came back. Her husband had been dead for almost nine years, and it was obvious that Brenna wanted the whole thing to just go away.
    But she was still a “person of interest,” and she knew it.

C HAPTER T HIRTY-EIGHT
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    I T WASN’T OVER. PEGGY SUE Thomas’s trial for first-degree murder lay ahead, set for November 2012. One could only hope that some of the mysterious questions in Russ Douglas’s strange and lonely death might be answered then.
    Peggy Sue seemed to be preparing to look her best for her trial—or for whatever prison sentence she might receive. Undoubtedly, she was shocked by the exceptional eighty-year sentence Jim had received. Since he was almost sixty, that was well over a life sentence for him.
    Could she expect the same punishment if a jury found her guilty, too? Surely she considered that.
    Peggy’s “Thanksgiving trial” was postponed until January 29, 2013.
    When she visited her father and stepmother in Idaho over Christmas, her relatives detected a subtle difference in the way she looked—but they couldn’t put their finger on what it was.
    Nor could Greg Banks or Mark Plumberg. Her sister Rhonda knew; Peggy Sue had had some further plastic surgery, and it was done well. She had had a filler injected into her lips, which made them more cushiony and fuller.
    Further, Peggy had some permanent tattooing, particularly around her eyes, lining them exotically, and now had perfect eyebrows, thanks to tattoos. Her lip liner tattoo would last forever, and there was also a soft reddish color there. If she did go to prison and was unable, for whatever reason, to have access to makeup, it wouldn’t matter; her makeup was now a part of her.
    If she should be acquitted, the fillers and tattoos wouldn’t be nearly as important, but they would be convenient. The lip filler, of course, would not last forever and the opportunity for a woman convicted of murder to receive plumping injections was nil.
    There was another tattoo, one that Peggy Thomas shared with her two daughters. They weren’t little girls now, and whatever else had happened in her life, Peggy’s girls had always been there for her. One was in medical school and the other was doing well in college, but they agonized over the thought of their mother going to prison. They loved and trusted Peggy Sue.
    So Peggy Sue, Mariah, and Taylor got identical tattoos on their backs: a Bible quote from Proverbs 31 about the virtues of a perfect woman. Thus far, the exact words remain a secret among Peggy and her daughters.
    * * *
    O N FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013, Peggy Sue Thomas and Jim Huden met in person for the first time in nine years. Would this reunion be the culmination of a great love? Many thought that Jim had given up any chance of freedom to protect Peggy. Would he maintain his huge sacrifice for her?
    Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks arranged to have Jim Huden brought from prison under heavy guard to the courtroom where Peggy Sue and her attorney, Craig Platt, would also be present. Die-hard romantics expected some longing glances, or perhaps a whispered private word or two.
    One of the issues to be discussed at this January hearing a short time before Peggy’s trial for first-degree murder was whether Jim Huden would testify against his former lover in her murder trial. If he should refuse to do so—citing the Fifth Amendment on the grounds that his testimony could be self-incriminating—the hearsay rule would not then prevent Bill Hill and Jim’s wife, Jean Huden, from testifying.
    Hill continued to say that Jim Huden had confessed murder to him, and so did Jean Huden. They also believed that Peggy Sue Thomas was an integral part of the plot to shoot Russ Douglas.
    A lot was at stake. But romance in the courtroom was not part of the drama. Jim and Peggy avoided each other’s eyes. At the most, they might have been casual acquaintances who had known each other briefly many years before.
    A meeting earlier that Friday morning had included Huden, Montoya, and Craig Platt. There, Jim Huden insisted that he had never implicated Peggy Thomas in any guilty way in Douglas’s death. She hadn’t lured the victim to Wahl Road with