Practice to Deceive

reputation.”
    As she faced the rage and bitterness of her victim’s family, Peggy Sue looked at them without expression. The pupils in her eyes seemed huge; it was quite possible that she had taken tranquilizers before her sentencing.
    Peggy Sue, at last, was scared.
    Gail O’Neal was next. She demanded that Peggy look at her as she spoke. Peggy looked up from time to time, but mostly focused on the floor.
    “Russ and Brenna had a tragic mess of a marriage,” Gail said. “They both played mind games with each other. The kids were pawns. Russ wasn’t perfect—but you have the key to all the answers. I beg you to tell what happened. You have nothing left to lose. If you ever get the guts to tell, please call me.”
    And then, oddly, Craig Platt rose and began a PowerPoint presentation designed to show Peggy Sue’s innocence!
    Perhaps he felt compelled to give what should have been his final arguments in a trial that never happened. Those used to the ground rules of a trial were baffled as the slide show continued.
    Didn’t Platt understand that that train had left the station? There was no trial, and the sentencing was no place for argument now. Still, Peggy’s attorney continued to extol her as a great mother, with no criminal record. “She is a credit to her community and she’s not a headline grabber. Three times she was released to travel. Three times, she came back.”
    Given a few more minutes, Platt might have likened Peggy Sue to the Virgin Mary.
    He gave Jim Huden short shrift—calling him a “nut head” and a “complete loser.”
    Greg Banks had had enough. He reminded Judge Hancock that Russ Douglas’s friends and family had been suffering for nine years with too many unanswered questions. “We see through a glass darkly. James Huden learned about Russ from either Brenna Douglas or Peggy Sue Thomas.”
    Judge Hancock carried on the plea that Peggy Thomas tell what she knew. It was so clearly the decent thing to do.
    “It makes no sense that both Jim and Russ should be in the same place [at the time of the murder]. Why? There was no motive at all,” the judge said. “Peggy Thomas has it within her to alleviate this family’s suffering. If she is so kind, caring, and compassionate [as Craig Platt had characterized her], then she will tell.”
    But Peggy Sue said nothing.
    It was time for Judge Hancock to read her sentence.
    “You will serve forty-eight months in prison—that’s as much as I can give you.”
    The judge then listed what she would be required to pay:
$217 in court costs
$500 for the Washington State Victims Compensation Fund
$100 for collection of fines
    The courtroom throbbed with silence for what seemed like a long time. And then Peggy Sue Thomas stood up and submitted to a body search by Deputy Bill Becker. She was taller and heavier than he was. Satisfied that she had no contraband, he locked her hands behind her back with handcuffs and led her out of the courtroom.
    Her daughters cried quietly.

E PILOGUE
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    P EGGY SUE WILL SERVE her time in the Washington Correction Center for Women in Purdy—not far from the soaring Tacoma Narrows Bridge. As prisons go, it is neither a hellhole nor a country club, and is actually quite livable.
    Ironically there was a country club less than a mile down the road from the women’s prison—the Canterwood Golf and Country Club—but Peggy Sue Thomas wouldn’t be using those posh facilities. That lifestyle was gone for her—at least for four years.
    After being the center of a great deal of media attention for several years, Peggy Sue Thomas has actually dropped out of the headlines and television news flashes. She is yesterday’s news.
    How she will fare in prison is anybody’s guess. She has always been adept at befriending women who initially find her caring and considerate. She has had several “best friends forever” in the past, although none of those friendships have ended happily.
    Prison will be one place where having a close female friend, a kind of “second lieutenant,” is important. If Peggy wants to find a close buddy, she will be able to accomplish that easily.
    I can see Peggy being an inmate like Martha Stewart was. She is highly intelligent, inventive, and fun to be around. And she is a take-charge personality who enjoys being the center of attention. She is quite likely to be one of the most popular inmates at Purdy. Or the most hated.
    Will she miss male companionship? Possibly not. Men have been a