Read Online New Leaf by Catherine Anderson - Free Book Online Page B

coming. But when he entered the emergency treatment room, he took one look at Sarah and started yelling that I’d gone too far this time. I didn’t get what he meant. I thought he was mad because he’d gotten pulled away from whatever he was doing at the time. I don’t think I totally realized what he was capable of until the cops came and physically removed me from my daughter’s bedside. They charged me with child abuse, I was put in jail, and because I had no money to hire a good attorney, the court appointed a public defender for me.”
    “There must have been evidence against you, Taffeta. You were convicted of the crime.”
    “Phillip lied,” she said, her voice trembling. “He was still being discreet at that time about his unsavory nightlife. On the surface, he was a successful young lawyer and family man. His father was a greatly respected person in Erickson. Who was the jury going to believe, Phillip, from a well-known local family, who was so suave and convincing, or me? After we got married, I lost touch with my friends at college. The only social contacts I had were with friends of Phillip’s or his parents’ friends. I had no one I could ask to be a character witness for me.”
    “Couldn’t you have asked members of your family?” Barney inserted.
    “I have no family.”
    Barney gave her an incredulous look. “No family? How did that happen?”
    “My birth mother gave me up as an infant for adoption, I wasn’t adopted, and I grew up in foster homes.” She sighed and passed a hand over her brow. “Back to my trial. I was out on bail by then, but all my things were still at the condo and Phillip wouldn’t let me in to get my clothes. I had little money, no decent clothing, no hair tools. I was a mess compared to Phillip in his expensive suit. He got on the stand and testified that I had abused Sarah countless times. He said he’d hoped that it would stop happening, but instead it only got worse. Then he said I went too far. He even sobbed and wept, as if what had happened to Sarah completelybroke his heart. He claimed that he could no longer pretend or keep my behavior a secret. Next time I might kill our daughter.”
    “And the judge believed him? You were convicted of abusing your daughter on his testimony alone?”
    “Yes. Mostly, anyway. Sarah did have cuts and bruises from the fall. And she had been taken to the ER twice before for treatment after she’d had accidents, once at a playground and once by the condo kiddy pool. Phillip swore that even those injuries had been inflicted on his daughter by me. The hospital records were inconclusive and looked bad for me, especially when Phillip’s attorney put his own spin on them.” She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “When those two earlier incidents occurred, I didn’t think I’d ever need witnesses to testify that I didn’t cause my child’s injuries, and by the time of my trial, I couldn’t recall the names of the people who’d seen what happened.”
    Barney knew that eyewitness testimony was sometimes enough to get someone convicted of a crime, but normally the court also wanted at least some physical evidence. “Did your daughter’s cuts and bruises look like injuries she might have gotten from a beating?”
    “The ER doctor said that they could have been inflicted by a fall down the stairs or by a beating. He couldn’t be sure which. But he also said that to his knowledge he’d never had a person falsely accuse a spouse of abusing a child. What reason would Phillip have to tell such a horrible lie?”
    Barney sat back in his chair to study her. Nowthat he’d heard the whole story, he supposed that she could be telling the truth. He just wasn’t sure why she was involving him.
    “The judge was lenient with me,” she went on. “I guess they often are with first-time offenders. I got five years of probation plus mandatory attendance at anger management counseling bimonthly. Phillip immediately started