Wicked Intentions by Kevin Flynn

Author:Kevin Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Horizon Press
Published: 2010-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Because some of New Hampshire’s smaller district-level courts aren’t staffed each day, locations for some arraignments seem to be chosen by a spinning wheel. Crimes in Epping were heard in the Exeter District Court (which was actually located in Brentwood). On Tuesday, April 4, Sheila LaBarre was arraigned in the Portsmouth District Court, the largest one in Rockingham County.

Carolyn Lodge sat in the front row on the aisle talking quietly with supporters around her. Her son was beside her, Gerald Lodge next to him, with Kenneth and Suzanne Countie at the far end next to the wall.

Sheila entered the courtroom at 9:08 A.M. wearing a rain jacket over her clothes, her hair untamed. Instead of the dapper sweater set, she was wearing the orange jumpsuit of the county house of corrections. As a uniformed state police trooper in a rain-speckled trench coat escorted her down the aisle, Sheila looked down at the blonde woman in the gray windowpane business suit. The woman held up a photograph. It was Kenneth Countie in green Army fatigues, a camouflage hat on his shorn head, in front of an American flag. His military portrait. The woman nodded her head slightly and held the photo out so Sheila would see it and get a good, long look at the life she stole.

The prisoner was escorted to a chair in the empty jury box. Other mundane arraignments for drunk driving and domestic assault continued, the opening act in a larger legal concert. Kenny’s mother, Carolyn Lodge, was white-knuckled holding the photo. It began to shake in her grasp. After a moment, a trooper told Sheila her lawyers were in the building and she could leave the room to speak with them in private. Escorted back up the aisle, her hands cuffed behind her back, Sheila caught Lodge’s gaze again and finally realized who she was. Sheila flipped her head to adjust her hair, a gesture that helped her eyes escape the looks of hate beaming her way.

Lodge sat in silence, her jaw clenched. She stared at the photo of her son, imagining Family Day when her son was in Basic Training. He looked wonderful. Her right thumb caressed Kenny’s cheek in the picture. Another immaculately French manicured nail picked at the paper edge of the print.

“He was my best friend,” she whimpered.

At 9:18, her other son put an arm around his mother, drawing her back from the trance she was in. The touch from her only living son did not embolden her. Lodge dabbed her nose with a tissue, then tried to stifle one large sob which burst forth from her heart. Her son’s comforting hand around his mother’s shoulders folded into a fist and he pulled her closer to him.

Those gathered for the first order of business in State v. LaBarre waited until 9:34 for the defendant and her lawyers to re-enter the courtroom. Sheila’s hair was now combed and her face powdered. The click of digital cameras punched the silence. Her raincoat had been

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